“The Lord's Supper in the Early RLDS Church” with Michael Nielsen

hello church history friends welcome my name is Barb Walden and it's a joy to welcome you tonight to an evening of Community of Christ history joining me today are my co-hosts uh the first being Peter Smith Peter is a board member for the Community of Christ historic sites Foundation he's the co-director of our annual historic sites bus tour and he's joining us tonight from the great state of Michigan welcome Peter in addition to Peter we also have Lexie Frasier here Lexie is a former student in the alma Blair internship program and she is joining us from Iowa welcome Lexie and last we have Seth Brian joining us from Kirtland tonight Seth is a former board member for the historic sites Foundation he's the former site director at the Kirtland Temple and he's the current editor of John Whitmer books Seth will also be serving as our main host tonight thank you Seth it's good to see you if you are looking for summer plans my friends I have an opportunity for you this is a summer with church history oh well here we are it's a summer involving church history The Community of Christ historic sites are currently recruiting for the alma Blair internship program it includes one position that's available at the temple in The Community of Christ library and archives and Independence and two additional internship positions are open at Joseph Smith III's Liberty Hall in Loni Iowa uh for any additional details and if you're interested about these great church history opportunities I encourage you to talk to llan McKai uh you can see his email address there on the screen and fun fact our speaker this evening Michael neelen is a former intern he served in NAU and kurtland um each summer and will be serving this summer in Independence so we are sure excited about that now friends we wouldn't be able to fund the summer internships or host lectures like tonight's program without your generous support your donations for the spring lecture series go to developing new educational programs as I mentioned they fund the Elma Blair internship program they support the expansion of oral histories and the ensure that we can continue providing online programs like tonight's lecture series and our book series in the wintertime uh these programs long into the future you can see the QR code QR code on the screen and Lexi will drop the online donation link and mailing address into the chat we thank you so much for your generous support friends and with that uh I will turn things over to Seth to begin our great night of church history and communion history stre thanks Barb all right so excited to be here with everybody we've got a great program lined up and Lexi is going to drop that into our uh chat the schedule of tonight's events over the next hour all right so to introduce Michael neelson who will be joining us this evening to share about his research on communion in the rlds church Michael H neelson is a native of St George Utah and an alumnus of state or currently Utah Tech University and as Barb mentioned he has like punched every uh every internship that he can uh at least he will have by the end of this summer with Community of Christ and then he's also worked as a doson at Silver Reef Museum in uh Leeds Utah and as an intern I really appreciated his thoughtfulness he kind and I'm just really excited to hear what he has to say tonight so Mike does a lot of research when he's not researching he loves to hike um apparently loves bowling and chocolate chip cookies as well so I'm going to turn things over to Mike we're so thankful to have you and ready to hear your latest discoveries in church history well thank you Seth for those kind words and I can't imagine myself uh asking for any more so thank thank you very much and and thank you Barb uh for this opportunity and for everybody that chose to to listen to a lecture via the web I don't know if a lot of people would consider that to be the best use of their time on a Thursday night but uh the the Nerds of us that are out there hopefully will uh take some benefit from this uh presentation so I have a PowerPoint that I'm going to share and this presentation is based off of some research and writing that I did for a paper that will eventually be published in Journal of Mormon history at the end of the year it looks like and it didn't really start off that way I I didn't set out in my mind okay I'm GNA get this paper published about the Lord's Supper in the early reorganization it was kind of more of a initially a something to just satisfy my own intellectual curiosity and then it morphed into something much bigger and longer in terms of time taking to research and write and rewrite uh but that's what the paper's called is uh the Lord's Supper in the early re reorganized Church of Jesus Christ latterday Saints and I include this image courtesy of the library archives and Independence it's a communion cup I have a few details about it communion cup used in the Summerfield Road Branch Birmingham England apparently there's another one two silver cups at one time were cared for and Polished by F Henry Edwards when he was Branch custodian given to the general church when the Summerfield Branch was disorganized this information was provided by by F Henry Edwards personally I don't have any information about when it was used my guess is early 20th century but it's just a guess so my own personal background I am not a Community of Christ member but I have worked for the church and I sympathize with many of the general principles of community Christ such as the enduring principles that I'm sure most if not all of us know about and so I kind of have holy Envy for Community of Christ in some ways and so I mention that to show my perspective about uh about the topic that it's an Outsiders perspective uh so that might be good for people to know uh in case they're wondering during or after the presentation and I just would like also to make a few acknowledgements in general I could name specific people and institutions who have greatly aided me in constructing this paper and hence this presentation this is not an Endeavor that one can do isolated from anybody and everybody else it's crucial to draw upon the experiences of others the knowhow of others the property and papers of Institutions and libraries and so on and so forth and so like I said I couldn't name names but you know who you are and thank you thank you thank you for helping me find what I need to look for things and to continue in that search as well because U history is a continual dialogue a continual search and so my deepest thanks and gratitude let's talk a little bit about terminology first off I think today Community of Christ the most common terms for the Lord's Supper are often communion or sacrament of communion but the period in which I researched the early reorganization roughly 1860s to 1910s I think the most common terms are Sacrament sacrament of the Lord's supper or the Lord's Supper are the most common I think it's because of the LDS Legacy uh the Doctrine and Covenants and just that but as time goes on into the 20th century and of course the 21st century that language is not as prominent or as connected to how the church views the sacrament here it's not as meaningful or it's not as uh pertinent uh and so not that this is a big deal it's just kind of a clarification to start off with because uh looking at the sources you'll see a lot of references to sa just Sacrament or sacrament of the Lord's Supper uh so just a clarification and the I guess in know in way one of the like I I mentioned the intellectual curiosity about the topic and I I was reading in a in a textbook introduction to Christian worship by James F white this is the fourth edition it's was published last year and it says at the very beginning of a chapter on the on the S the Lord's Supper the Eucharist is the most distinctive ritual practice practice of Christian worship pretty bold statement but also pretty accurate I I think there's very few I can think of like the Salvation Army and maybe some Quakers that don't observe some sort of Eucharist or the Lord's supper or sacrament of communion practice in their religious tradition and so it's a it's a universal Christian practice and yet it's one that can easily be routinized and mechanical in terms of how we go about doing it and talking about it and so I guess that's what part of what led me to really excavate more deeply about why it did the 19th century early 20th century reorganization think or do about the Lord's Supper as they did and and there's really only so much Source material for some questions and some questions we just have to shake our shrug our shoulders and say we don't know but more on that later but at the beginning in my my paper to kind of segue into this presentation I'll start by referring to a paragraph in my paper when broaching the subject of the 19th century re reorganized Church the Lord's Supper is not among its primary ecclesiastical distinctives in spite of this or perhaps because of it studying the Lord's Supper as performed in the early rlds church can help one understand a main stay in the Faith's spiritual life Peter Jud Community of Christ leader laid a foundation in 1978 in his study of church sacraments I think there was a revised version of it in the 90s Jud devoted a chapter to the Lord's Supper in the in which aspects of historical development scriptural analysis and contemporary practice were intermixed my paper builds further on that foundation in terms of historical and Theological development in the L latter half of the 19th and early 20th century so I'll go through some but not all of the different aspects of the Lord's Supper uh that were that are in my paper there will be some things in this presentation that I did not talk about in my paper perhaps because they were after thoughts but they're still interesting and important matters so frequency how often do we celebrate this Sacrament and I have a quote there in uh from The Book of Mormon and they the church didn't meet together off to take of Bread and Wine in remembrance of the Lord Jesus well how often or frequently is of and in the early reorganization that question is not answered in a definitive manner simply there was a variety of opinions and practices that were had depending on where you were at who was in charge the there's a district conference in 1884 in Northwest Missouri that requested a church General Conference to speak authoritatively on the subject of partaking every week but there's no evidence that that ever happened uh the Saints heral two years earlier 1882 says the church has not by resolution rule or statement fixed the time to be covered by this word often but has as we believe wisely left the matter to be determined by the circumstances and condition of each and every branch and so it differed from congregation to congregation there there was one report about a branch in Iowa that had neglected the the Lord's Supper for more than a year I think it was probably leadership was in disarray or something like that but as that last bullet point mentions any less than once a month I think was deemed as unacceptable it had to be done at least once a month uh for it the church to have some sort of benefit or meaning from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper so you can see this chart here uh shows some different congregations of the reorganization and the frequency with which they partook of uh communion so PL Plano Illinois monthly St Louis Missouri weekly Boomer branch and Iowa every other week Flat Rock Alabama twice a month Atchinson Kansas twice a month of course business meetings of these branches could they could decide that oh we're we're taking it monthly but let's do it every other week uh so it could change just depending on uh circumstances or or leadership who is in leadership or or whether whether they had enough wine or not um and that that picture there I I didn't mean for that to be uh hurtful to anybody I I forgot to change that Kirtland Temple uh picture there before the the March 5th announcement but it it's a stunning picture and I wanted to to include it and I and I did and just forgot to change it after March 5th but uh the building's still there and and uh still can be used by Community of Christ of course now kneeling in administering the Lord's Supper this is a topic that was touched on by Jonathan Stapley and David Gua in John the John Whitmer Journal about a year ago and they say in there that the prevailing posture in their early reorganized church is unknown uh moronai 4 and they the Elder priest the the officiator did kneel down with the church and pray to the father in The Name of Christ saying and then repeating the prayer of consecration I think the key word there is prevailing I'm sure that the officiator if not the congregation knelt when the sacramental emblems are being blessed but how pervasive that practice was we don't know it's not a detail that people are inclined to write about in church periodicals or recording their Diaries uh so we we don't know at least several sources a private letter heral articles emphasize that church members or congregants were to kneel one example in the Saints Herald Preparatory to blessing the bread the congregation should be in a sitting posture but in blessing the elements The Bread and Wine all should kneel a description of the Plano branch in 1879 indicated all knelt during the blessings the officiator and the congregation now I don't have this discussion of this specific aspect in my paper David guua and Jonathan Stapley do but I I mention it because this is a custom that is still seen in Community of Christ today at least what I've seen I don't know if it's pervasive throughout the whole church but it's just interesting to me coming from a Latter Day Saint perspective in in Utah because you don't see that in Latter Day Saint practice it may have happened a long time ago late 1800s maybe early 1900s but it dies out after that uh so that's that's why I mention it in here and it's kind of an interesting custom because some people would associate the kneeling with Adoration of the Bread and Wine as being the body and blood of Christ uh but I don't think that that is too big of an issue in the early reorganization because the The Bread and Wine are are emblems they're not it's they don't take that language literal it's not the literal body and blood of Christ but we'll we'll get to that now this is a photo that I did not find this comes from George Farnell in Alabama thank you George and while it's a little bit out of the chronological frame of my research it's close enough to include it and I'm sure that many people will appreciate seeing this it is a photo of an RS LDS congregation in Mile Alabama somewhere around 1920 and in a building that the church no longer owns but there's clearly the officiator there at the front and the congregation waiting for the emblems to be blessed and in the next photo you can see the officiator are kneeling but it doesn't look like the congregation is they're they're still sitting in their seats uh so they're not kneeling but maybe other congregations are but photographic evidence uh so thank you again George for sharing these images I I think images like these are rare and I haven't really found much in terms of images I would love to see something from the 19th century whether it's something similar to to these photos or it could just be a bread tray or a common cup everything I've come across has been early 20 Century but just a thought the sacramental prayers found in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants in the early reorganization these prayers were were for the most part read read verbatim they open the book and they read the prayers as printed now there were some exceptions to that uh it's not absolutely mandated there seems to have been in early 19th century America sort of cultural aversion to fixed or formulated prayers and preaching people read the Bible such as in Psalm 81 open thy mouth wide and I will fill it they took that literally and they thought that by that the Holy Spirit would put words into their mouths and they would be inspired to speak or preach or pray uh Saints Harold said circumstances May Pate the use of other prayers than the prayers that are written in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenant similar in substance but differing in words so not something that's just right off the top of your head but something that kind of models off of what the written texts say but also extemporize based off of those prayers and you can kind of have you can see in analogy of that uh when it comes to this certain verse in the in the Doctrine and Covenants versus the book of commandments so the book of Commandments in the italics uh on that fourth bu bullet point says the elders are to conduct the meetings as they are led by the Holy Ghost so very much a spirit charismatic response to how worship is to be structured and conducted but the revision to that verse that came out in the Doctrine and Covenants adds the underlined part after Holy Ghost according to the Commandments and Revelations of God so that addition is made probably to police or structure how worship is framed or conducted because there were too many instances of wild unexpected controversial things going on and the leaders were afraid that that was getting out of hand and so maybe Jo Smith added that phrase in according to the Commandments and Revelations of God to kind of Reign that stuff in Joseph III gave a strong defense of the scriptural prayers in the Saints Herald January 16th 1892 but like I said it doesn't seem to be absolutely mandated and in 1897 and again in 19 for so as late as the 20th Cent early 20th century the the Zion enzy editor Church periodical in Independence noted that there was a laxity in reciting the written prayers and I think the the editor went on to say well the baptismal formula that's in the Doctrine and Covenants is never de deviated from so should we deviate from the from the sacramental prayers so that that was his point in writing that but it shows that that practice seems to have survived in an isolated way anyway into the early 20th century sacramental prayers today of course you can find these well at least this is where I first found them being a non-member but found him in the Community of Christ Himel contemporary gender neutral language and a single prayer for both Bread and Wine so the prayers are they're modeled after but they're not entirely thrown away they're not just seen as useless and we should just start from scratch but at the same time we don't bind ourselves to them without any sort of reflection on how they can still be useful or how they're not so useful and it reminded me of uh Doctrine and Covenant section 161 be respectful of tradition but neither be captive to time bound formulas and procedures so keeping an eye on the past but at the same time keeping an eye on needs and concerns of the present and that's a balancing act but it's one that I think is wise to to do let's talk a little bit about theological conceptions how we go about thinking about the the bread and the wine and what they do for us or don't do for us how how symbolic is it or how literal is it and and we just briefly touched on this earlier I think some people would argue this whole argument about symbolism or literalism or that it's anachronistic meaning the first century Jews who knew Jesus and heard him talk about this uh new institution that they didn't care about whether or not his body was the bread or his blood was the wine but that's kind of another argument that I won't get into but certainly people in the early reorganization are concerned about it um we'll touch on that so on the one side The Herald throughout so many references throughout the herald consistently employed the language of bread and wine being emblems of the body and blood of Christ with not much room for ambiguity in other words they're we're not Catholics we don't believe in transubstantiation the these these are just emblems and scriptural evidence of that seems to be in third Nephi this shall you do in remembrance of my body you shall do it in remembrance of my blood and that kind of Echoes some biblical language that's in First Corinthians and the Gospel of Luke and on the other hand there's this tension with the view that uh maybe it's a little more there's a little more to it than that it's not just physical food that we're eating and thinking some holy thoughts about it one guy wrote In The Herald and said consecrated Bread and Wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ by the power of the spirit through the priesthood in faith and God so accepts and acknowledges it kind of a novel Viewpoint from my research and and I don't think there was any sort of official correction to that view that came out third Nephi 8 usage of my flesh flesh and blood in referring to Bread and Wine he that eateth this bread and E eateth of my body you drink this wine you drink it my blood and uh again from third Nephi kind of echoing that language that you see in John chapter 6 and of course the response of the people in there how can we eat this man's flesh how can we drink his blood uh so there's this this tension there I think the early reorganization can be likened their theological conceptions in this aspect to probably a similar weight of methodists at the time the wesan or the methodists are generally opposed to Lutheran explanations as well as Roman Catholic accounts of how the Lord's Supper is explained at the same time they remain steadfastly opposed to doctrinal proposals that would reduce the reality down to some sort of stimulant for Christian memories in other words it's not just bread and wine that or bread and grape juice that provide susten sustenance to our physical bodies instead much Wesleyan theology explicitly follows Calvin in the mainstream reformed tradition in understanding that Christ is spiritually present in the bread and wine so in kind of this mysterious unfathomable unexplainable way somehow Christ is present with us in a spiritual sort of well we'll see a quote from Fred M Smith about that so the phraseology and language of biblical and restoration scripture framed how communion was described and explained in the early reorganization communion was more theologically conservative than bare physical nourish ment so not just symbolic and nothing more but moderated views of Supernatural transformation of the elements again we're not Catholics Fred M Smith it may be well within the design of divinity that this ceremony the Lord's Supper shall still remain one of the mysteries of godliness and he said that because he made the observation that there's not really in the totality of script the scriptural Cannon there's not really that much that's said about the Lord's supper and that there's a lot of unanswered questions about how it is a Grace for the Saints and it kind of reminded me of section 162 in the doct and Covenants it is not the form of the sacrament that dispenses Grace but it is the divine presence that gives life in other words it's not that we should follow A and B so that we can get to see or that we should do things the a particular way and and that that that will lead to Divine Grace being bestowed upon us it's more that God is working in us and through us he's doing the first step to dispense Grace and life and that little things like formulas and and structures are they're a they're a means to an end but they're not the end in and of itself unworthiness what did it mean or worthiness what did it mean in the early reorg organization and I and I put backstory to that because this is another one of those aspects that I did not talk about in my paper but I was asked a question about it in a certain setting and it made me want to do some more research about this particular subject and so I'll I'll touch on it uh and I put that reference to third Nephi 8 I think it's Jesus just talking about you should not eat of My Flesh or drink of my blood in an unworthy man or or you should forbid those that are unworthy uh a district conference in Iowa decided persons who admitted to neglecting family and individual prayer and showed no desire for reform were Unworthy of partaking to the sacramental emblems I don't know how you enforce that but at least they're that evidence from the Saints heral in 1872 shows that at least they're talking about about it offending another person refusing to restore and reconcile while continuing to partake of the supper that seen as a no no worthy meaning having the glory of God peace and Good Will to all not war and Malice Envy or hate in our hearts that's one interpretation given of what it means to be worthy what it means to be unworthy perhaps uh pettiness doubts rebukes fault finding or harshness of tongue Isaac Sheen made some remarks in defense of the instructions of the savior in the following extract and then he quotes from the book of that Book of Mormon passage uh but no further explanation so again it's just another evidence that at least some people are talking about this subject but that last paragraph kind of maybe gives a conclusion to it all our experience in the matter is that very few really guilty ever attempt to eat the bread and drink the wine and many really innocent sometimes refrain lest they may possibly incure the penalty for partaking unworthily so in other words don't worry about it too much it's safer and better to just partake again it's it's one of those issues that there probably not a whole lot of documentation about it but at least those things that I listed give us a clue about what they're talking about at the time drinking vessels so people are using a common cup they're passing around a common cup uh I I personally would probably be one of those people to show up to church nice and early and get at the front row so that I'm one of the first to partake out of that common cup because if you're in the back and you are one of the last ones to drink out of it I can't imagine what might be the smell and looks of it but uh Common Sacramento cup that's the that's the custom of the time and it's really a custom that goes back a long long time in fact you can still find Christian churches that'll that'll offer that option to people the common cup and when individual cups were piloted in the final days of the 19th century and early days of the 20th because of this wider dissemination of knowledge about Theory and how diseases are transmitted uh when these individual cups are piloted it causes some divisive discussion among reorganized Saints and Joseph the Joseph Smith II being one of them he he he opposed individual cups and he he had used a common cup all of his life and he loved the the symbolism that a common cup gave to people this idea of we're all drinking out of the same cup so we're all partaking of uh the one blood of Christ we're all partaking unitedly whether we're rich or poor black or white whatever uh there was a a Cleveland Ohio newspaper editorial that that was reprinted in the Saints heral in 1895 which called individual cup Advocates pseudo scientists and Joseph III gave his approval to that and he said don't worry about it uh if you're there to partake of the consecrated wine you're doing it to the glory of God and for your own Grace and you're G to be fine you're not going to get sick over it God God's Not Gon to let that happen to you probably still some people that that think that today you're not going to get harmed by it um so it Joseph so when Joseph III your president of your church is against it probably a lot of other people are going to be opposed to it as well U there was a a first presidency letter in 1906 that was sent to a member in Rhode Island about the question of individual cups and it it's kind of sarcastic in its tone it said oh if you're going to have individual cups you may as well have individual plates as well individual plates for the the bread and it went on to say that only Rich congregations and fashionable churches use uh individual cups and and then I think at the end of the letter Joseph III or who whoever was uh dictating it said oh that the Loni congregation is this big and the and the St Louis congregation is this big and what a spectacle it would be with individual cops so very much a disapproval of of them and there were some people in the reorganization that apparently ceased their participation because of the issue that well you're not going to serve a common cup anymore I that's and I've had enough now I didn't find any specific examples of that although I did find a reference in 1918 Elbert A Smith uh kind of gave a passing mention to a an elder he didn't say who who he was he just said he was well known and since individual cups had been introduced this elder had abstained from the Lord's Supper I guess as a way of showing his disproval um so a very divisive topic the 19 April 1912 General Conference adopted a joint resolution of the presidency in the 12 which moderately left the matter of using common or individual cups in the sacramental service up to each branch so depending on which congregation you went to they might be serving individual cups they might be serving a common cup I did find another reference to people who if they found out that there was a congregation nearby that was uh you Ser using a common cup and maybe their own congregation was using individual cups they'd say oh we're going to go to such and such place because they use they use a common cup we we don't want anything to do with those individual cups but time went on this discourse about the topic continued and uh from 1914 to 1917 various congregations adopted individual cups such as uh a mission Conference held April 1914 on K kakura island in the South Pacific featured a communion service that piloted individual cups priesthood members had unanimously voted the day before to eliminate the common cup because it was recommended by a government official and for them it did not make any difference which way the sacrament was served the customary Co coconut water was blessed served and the ceremon received by all with apparent satisfaction and not one complained the Honolulu Hawaii Branch voted unanimously to use individual cups on the last day of January 195 later that year October 3D marked the beginning of individual cups in the Loni area and It produced complete satisfaction action with no regrets the little rlds branch in Cleveland Ohio followed suit with its first individual cup communion service during Easter 1917 and Fort Madison Iowa around the same time Church culture and societal views had shifted enough that by 1927 an rlds Bishop implicitly likened those who advocated for drinking wine out of a common cup to the Pharisees and Sadducees kind of kind of interesting and of course the the 1918 flu epidemic probably hastened the demise of the common cup although like I said it's still something that can be found even today and back in early 20th century especially in rural areas the common cup is still still used wine or water or I should I should have also added grape juice now in the early reorganization wine or grape juice was by far the most preferred drink for sacramental use there was one fellow I think his name was Robert Catlin a farmer in Kansas he wrote to the Saints Herold in 1877 and he said I can't take water in the sacrament with a good conscience and so that shows you that there is this deep aversion to anything other than Wine especially since these people were scriptural literalists and so they read the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants where it says wine Bread and Wine well it's got to be wine doesn't it uh now there was quite a bit of discussion about whether that wine should be fermented or not and in parenthesis there I have the fores scut stebin in inent in 1871 so this incident happened in November 1871 but about a month before that in Plano Illinois Mark forut Missionary uh recorded in his diary that Abraham Hendrickson who was who had been uh he had been baptized a Latter Day Saint even before the martyrdom and he lived in uh I think the 1870 1870 census said he lived in Little Rock Illinois but that Hendrickson and Isaac Sheen got into a heated argument on the question of fermentation so that was October of 71 a month later November 1871 Henry steans uh Church leader visited Plano and during a sacramental service he noticed the unconsecrated wine consisted of raisins his co-administrator Mark forcecut recorded in his diary steans privately asked me to bless the wine as he could not if he should bless it call it anything but water due to this incident apparently forut attended a council meeting the next day that among other matters discussed whether to use ordinary wine or raisin wine so the Saints heral had mentioned using uh expressed raisins as a kind of a substitute for for fermented wine uh but they have this discussion in a council meeting about whether it should be fermented or not ordinary rine or raisin wine and Joseph III and Hendrickson uh favored ordinary wine but Isaac Sheen and another fellow named uh Robert War vote they voted for uh raisin wine so a lot of discussion about about that topic went on uh in private meetings like that or in in the church periodicals 1877 the Herold printed a paragra paragraph length process whereby wine was made for sacramental and medicinal purposes by the Plano Illinois congregation uh I think grape juice is probably started as early as the 1890s maybe but not uh very isolated use of it wine is definitely a regular thing that's being used into the early 20th century in the midst of a national temperance movement a general conference resolution dated April 9th 1913 recommended the cup contain water or unfermented wine so again the early 20th century is kind of this transition period or uh grape juice being substituted and uh a greater social conscious about drunkenness and uh the inappropriateness of that and that great juice should be uh a fine substitute for that in conclusion the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints during the long and successful leadership of Joseph III dealt with the doctrine and practice of the Lord's Supper in a way that demonstrated a commitment to religious moderation without rigidity the reorganization continually worked through different understandings of the Lord's Supper by keeping the peace through consensus without shattering broad Unity leniency was needed for a freethinking membership suspicious of pronouncements intended on terminating dialogue thank you again for this opportunity I hope that that was helpful and I look forward to trying to answer some of your questions well thank you so much Michael that was just really interesting and fascinating and uh we're I I I just sat here enjoying every word you you shared with us tonight as you know every every month we uh take communion and uh don't stop to think about how the traditions where they came from or where they didn't come from and um and how many things we uh consider to be this is how it's always been done to find out in fact there was a little more fluidity to all of it um it was uh very very much appreciated I wanted to share a request of Michaels with all of you if you have historic photos of communion Services taking place he would love to receive them from reunions worship Services stake conferences and I I think you get the idea and you can email scans of them to B Walden historic sites foundation.org that's Barb's uh email address and Barb will share them with Mike and maybe when we get a moment we can share Barb's email address in the chat as well and and with that uh now we'll bring our evening program to a close thank you Mike thank you so much for sharing your research with us tonight who knew there was so much to learn about communion in Community of Christ history uh I look forward to hearing more about your research after you spend a summer in the church archives uh who knows that you'll uncover after your time in Independence I also want to give a big thank you to Peter and Lexie and Seth for helping out behind the scenes and making it all look so easy we apologize that we lost Seth for a little while the internet connection in Kirtland is about as good as it was in the 1830s I understand so Seth we we're sorry we missed you um but we hope we'll get you back next week and lastly we share our thanks to all of you our dear friends in the audience For Your Love of a good story and for generously supporting The Community of Christ historic sites Foundation we appreciate you and I encourage all of you to tune in next Thursday on May 16 we will welcome Peter's much older brother Tony shabala Smith to the spring lecture series Tony's lecture is called facing modernity Fred M Smith and the Theology of the social gospel movement so be sure to follow the link that Lexi just dropped into the chat to register for the lecture happening next Thursday May 16th at 7 pm Central so until then keep sharing your stories keep reading your church history take care and have a good night

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Length: 60min 12sec (3612 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024