Call to Communion

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Each week, members of Little Rock’s Immanuel Baptist Church’s Tele-Bible Sunday School class dial in for a Scripture lesson and a little socializing. This week they will also celebrate the Lord’s Supper - by phone.

The unusual service is held a couple of times a year and has a big impact on participants.

“It means so much,” said Dorothy Horne, who joined the class a few years ago after her sister Doris had a stroke. “She isn’t able to do all that walking, so we just have it here at home and it’s been a lifesaver.”

The Tele-Bible Sunday School class has been around since 1996 but the Lord’s Supper service wasn’t added until 2003. Volunteers from the church deliver individual servings of the Communion elements - a tiny cup of grape juice and a wafer of bread - to participants a week or so before the service. When Sunday rolls around, class members call a toll-free number to get connected via conference call. Church member Linda Jordan takes roll. A usual week includes time for members to chat with each other, followed by a Bible lesson. For Communion Sunday the routine is a little different and more solemn in nature.

The focus in on the significance of the Lord’s Supper.

David Moore, a Baptist pastor and president of the Arkansas Baptist Foundation, will be leading his first Tele-Communion service this week.

“A lot of times churches will have laymen or a deacon take the elements to a person who is shut in and will be right there with them on the spot,” Moore said. “This is more of a worship service. It’s more formal.”

Moore said he will conduct the service like he would in a church.

“I’ll talk about the Lord’s Supper, the meaning of it and why we are doing it,” Moore said, adding that he will focus on I Corinthians 11, when the Apostle Paul admonishes the community for dishonoring the Lord’s Supper by gorging on food and getting drunk and ignoring the meaning behind the meal.

“They weren’t examining themselves,” Moore said. “[Paul says] before you do this you ought to really examine your heart. Be sure you are ready to participate.”

After the lesson Moore will then lead the group in prayer and in the taking of the elements. The key to the service is offering clear instructions so participants know when to partake. Unlike in a church service, the class members can’t see Moore to follow his physical cues.

Moore said as he prepares for his first Communion service with the group, it has helped him reflect on the importance of the Lord’s Supper in his life. Growing up asa Baptist, the Lord’s Supper wasn’t observed every week, but when it was, it was always a special occasion, he said.

“It had great meaning to me, to get back to basics, back to the heart of worship,” he said.

He hopes the Tele-Bible class participants will also find deep meaning in the service.

“I think it’s incredibly important [to offer this service],” he said. “For those who are alone, home by themselves, it becomes incredibly meaningful.”

Nell Adams, 97, has been a faithful member of Immanuel Baptist Church since the 1940s and a member of the Tele-Bible Sunday School class for almost 10 years. She said the Communion service helps her stay connected to the church and to God.

“I can’t emphasize enough how meaningful it is to us to be able to participate in a church ordinance,” she said.

Adams said she enjoys talking with other class members, some she’s never even met. But she recognizes the voices.

“We have a wonderful time,” she said. “It makes you feel like a human being, like you are still connected. It’s one of the things that mean so much to us.”

Adams said the Communion service is a little more solemn and subdued, which allows members the opportunity to reflect on the importance of the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus, in the “Scripture, says, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ so it recalls to us the importance of the Last Supper,” she said. “It’s one of the things we look forward to.”

As for Dorothy Horne, who has been a member of the church for about 55 years, she has found the class and the service to be vitally important since she is no longer able to attend in person.

“You don’t realize how important Communion is until you think you are not going to have it,” Horne said.

Some class members socialize, by phone, with each other during the week. They also work their way down the prayer list, asking God to heal sickness and meet needs.

“We really are very active,” Horne said. “It would be really hard to accept not going to church without our Sunday School lesson every Sunday. We would feel we were out of touch. You really do feel like you’re not missing church as much when you can do this.”