Renew the Table: Some Supper Stats

Renew the Table is a series of thoughts and opinions concerning the renewal of the Lord's Supper. For more information please see Goals and Disclaimers. Especially since this one is a little baptisty...and mathy. 

A Lifeway survey came out in two years ago highlighting the Lord’s Supper in Baptist worship. Questions were asked of a sampling of pastors regarding open communion and how often communion is served. When the survey came out the internet seemingly exploded in debate regarding open communion verses closed communion. Although it’s good to discuss that issue, I found the other question regarding frequency (and the lack of concern after the study was released) more revealing.

Over half (57%) of the responders indicated that they only serve communion Quarterly. As you can see, this number alone towers over those who indicated they serve Weekly (1%) or Monthly (18%). The two other categories indicated churches were partaking 5-10 times per year (15%) or less than 4 times per year (8%). 

The “5-10 times” crowd and the “0-3 times” folks can be viewed basically as satellites of the Quarterly group. It would be reasonable to assume that the majority of the “5-10 times” crowd is likely including their holiday communion (ie. Quarterly communion plus Easter and/or Christmas) and the “less than 4” group is probably only serving communion around the holidays (ie. 1-2 times per year). Due to this reasoning, and for our purposes we can combine these two groups into one, (call them the “Holiday” group) with the understanding that they serve the Lord’s Supper roughly 6 or less times during the year, with the majority serving it 4 times.

With that bit of reasonable conjecture, and with the understanding that the Holidays are the moons to the Quarterly planet, we begin to see an even more drastic picture. We can roughly divide the Southern Baptist Churches in to three camps regarding frequency in communion: Weekly (1%), Monthly (18%), and Quarterly/Holiday (80%). 

Playing with Numbers

Let’s imagine four people, all of whom became a Christian at the age of 20. Let’s say each of these people began worshiping at a different SBC church. Quinn joins up at First Baptist Quarterly. Max becomes a member of Monthly Community. Will worships at Weekly Fellowship. And Hank joins Holiday Baptist, a sister church of Quarterly. Now imagine the wholly unrealistic scenario that each of these men are able to attend every Sunday gathering that is held at their respective places of worship for the next fifty years. And so that everyone is on the same playing field, let’s say that each church partakes the Lord's Supper in the same manner and each is undergirded with a sound, gospel-centered communion theology.

Let’s see how many times each one is able to partake of the Lord’s Supper as the years accumulate.

	How often each man partakes
	4x a year	6x a year	12x a year	52x a year
Age | years at church	Quarterly Quinn	Holiday Hank	Monthly Max	Weekly Will
21 | 1 year	4	6	12	52
22 | 2 years	8	12	24	104
23 | 3 years	12	18	36	156
24 | 4 years	16	24	48	208
25 | 5 years	20	30	60	260

Five years in and we already see a stark difference. Will has partaken 260 times compared to Quinn who has only partaken 20 times. In fact after 5 years, both Hank and Quinn combined have not partaken as much as Will had in his first year as a Christian. Again, assuming sound theology, and knowing that worship is formative, what conclusions might we draw from this? 

Before we draw conclusions, let’s gaze farther into the future:

	How often each man partakes
	4x a year	6x a year	12x a year	52x a year
Age | years at church	Quarterly Quinn	Holiday Hank	Monthly Max	Weekly Will
30 | ten years	40	60	120	570
40 | twenty years	80	120	240	1040
50 | thirty years	120	180	360	1560
60 | forty years	160	240	480	2080
70 | fifty years	200	300	600	2600

By the time Quinn turns 30 he still hasn't celebrated communion as much as Will had ten years ago in his first year as a Christian. Once Quinn has hit 70 years of age he would have partaken only 200 times. Which is still less than the amount of times Will had partaken when Will was the ripe old age of 24! The cumulative effect of weekly communion is quite staggering.

Think long and hard about it. Quinn has been going to church for 50 years. He is a 70 year old man. Will has been going to church for 4 years. He is a 24 year old man. And Will has partaken more than Quinn.

Also, remember these numbers indicate the wholly unrealistic scenario that each man attended every communion service until they were 70 year old men. This means that Quarterly Quinn would have to attend every single communion service for 50 years in order to have partaken 200 times. How monumental is it then for him to miss a service? If Quinn missed communion in the Second Quarter, he’ll have to wait months before the Supper is served again. If Will missed communion, he has to only wait a few days. Again, assuming a sound theology in both cases, what would the formative effect be for each of these men?

Let's Keep Playing with Numbers

The Southern Baptist Convention released an Annual Church Profile in 2012. This record indicates that in 2012 roughly 6 million Southern Baptists attended worship each week. Using the three groups we identified above (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly/Holiday) let’s extrapolate these percentages across the SBC.

On any given week there were 6 million Southern Baptists in attendance for worship. Let’s say it’s the first Sunday of the new Quarter, which lands on the first Sunday of the Month. According to the numbers nearly 6 million members of churches associated with the SBC will be partaking communion.

Now let’s move a month later. The Quarterly group is not partaking, but the Weekly and Monthly members are. Of the 6 million members in the SBC, only 1,140,000 members are now partaking. That’s a drop off of 81%.

Now let’s move to the following week, the second Sunday of the month. Neither the Quarterly nor the Monthly members are partaking. Now of the 6 million members attending worship this week only 60,000 people will be celebrating the Supper. That is equal to the weekly attendance of just a couple Texas megachurches.

Out of 46,034 churches (in 2012) that’s only 460 churches across the nation. Just for a little perspective, in the state I live in, Missouri, in 2012 there were 1,859 SBC churches. In the counties comprising Kansas City Metro alone (in 2010) there were 313 SBC churches.

For comparison, out of 46,034 SBC churches in 2012:

Number of SBC churches serving communion weekly: 460 (1%)

Number of SBC churches serving communion monthly: 8286 (18%)

Number of SBC churches serving communion Quarterly +and/or Holiday: 36,826 (80%)

An astoundingly low number of churches in the SBC serve communion weekly, while the number of Quarterly/Holiday observing churches is through the roof. 

What Do These Numbers Tell Us?

If belief informs practice, then what can we infer from this study? For one, infrequent observance of the Lord’s Supper must indicate a belief that does not place an emphasis on the Lord’s Supper as an important or vital element of weekly gathered worship. Notice I did not say they believe it to be unimportant or non-vital. Based on the numbers I just can’t say that. Numbers tell us “what” not “why”. And what the numbers say is that the majority of SBC churches do not believe the Lord’s Supper to be an element of worship important or vital enough to conduct for at least 48 weeks out of the year.

This all touches on what I said the yesterday when I put forward the notion that practice is the effect of a held belief. The frequency in which a church serves the Supper is an indication of a church’s theology and understanding of communion.

Indication is a key word. We gain knowledge from indicators. When the engine light comes on, there isn’t anything wrong with the dashboard; it is an indicator that something is wrong with the engine. When a boy gives a girl a rose it is an indicator that he wants her to be his sweetheart. We should also be careful to remember that while indicators are important, sometimes they don’t tell us the whole story.

A man who has told his wife he loves her every day of their marriage has abruptly stopped telling her so in the last few days. This indicates to us that something has changed but it doesn't tell us why the change has occurred. For that we must investigate further. Perhaps he fell ill and in his misery understandably forgot to say the familiar words. Perhaps he’s having an affair with his secretary. Perhaps she’s having an affair with the mailman and he found out. Perhaps he's getting lazy. There could be a thousand reasons, but the important thing is that the indicator is what led us to investigate further. One more thing. While we may not know the whole story about Why the man stopped telling his wife he loves her, we do know enough about the What (he stopped) to know that things have not changed for the better.

So when I say “the infrequent observance of the Lord’s Supper must indicate a belief that does not place an emphasis on the Lord’s Supper as an important or vital element of weekly gathered worship,” I cannot tell you, based on the numbers alone, why this is the case. But I can take those numbers and place them in the context of Scripture and Church history, and when I do I see a vast divergence. We need to investigate.