This project was designed to meet a need at the Queen City Church of Christ (QCC) for developing intentional practices around the Lord’s Supper for forming a central identity in a diverse community. The scope of this project focuses on the project group’s ability to develop practices based on the theology of the Lord’s Supper, biblical teaching, engaging in practices of spiritual formation as a group, and their observations of Lord’s Supper practices in other Christian traditions. Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth provides the textual context for the discussion of the role the Lord’s Supper plays within a faith community. The theology of the Lord’s Supper throughout scripture and church history also informs the theological foundation for the project. Gleaning from the work of James K. A. Smith, the project consults the study of the formation of liturgies as an approach to creating intentional identity formative practices.
A purposeful sample of members at QCC were used for conducting this intervention. The diverse project group were chosen by the church leadership and me from applicants from the congregation. One primary objective of the project was to introduce the group to spiritual disciplines to help them form the habits of spiritual formation. Another primary objective was to connect new practices each week with the teaching from the session and implement them into the group’s time together with the Lord’s Supper. The intervention was intended to draw upon the experience of a diverse group of Christians who engaged in spiritual disciplines, theological teaching, and observations of the Lord’s Supper within the Christian tradition to see if they could formulate practices for our congregation in our context for the sake of cultivating a central identity in our diverse community. The intervention resulted in a proposal of practices presented to the church elders for their consideration
