Why do Lutheran Churches celebrate Communion only twice a month?
Each Lutheran church determines its own frequency of Holy Communion. At Our Lord’s Lutheran Church, for example, we celebrate Communion every Sunday. We believe this accords with the early tradition of the Church. In Acts 2:42, a description of life in the early read tells us they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. After the Reformation, there was a period of over-reaction to “Catholic” practices, including frequent Communion. The attitude may have been something like this: If the Catholics do it every Sunday, it must be wrong. There was also a “fear factor,” stemming from the passage in 1 Corinthians 11:27, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves . . .” A number of factors were influential. First, there was an emphasis on being able to have an intellectual understanding of the nature of the Lord’s
