The simple and honest answer to the title’s question is: as often as you do.

When Christ held up the cup, He said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25).

In other words, there is no explicit command regarding frequency.

For my entire childhood and into the first church that my wife and I joined, I only experienced the Lord’s Supper quarterly. Whenever the Lord brought us to Western Meadows, we began to observe the ordinance monthly.

The more I read about the Lord’s Supper, the more I heard a repeated refrain: once a church begins taking the Lord’s Supper weekly, anything less frequent begins to feel odd. After four years of weekly Communion, I can give my own experiential confirmation.

Indeed, last week, weather conditions made it necessary to cancel our own Lord’s Day gathering, but since other local churches were still able to meet, I encouraged our congregation to fellowship with other believers that week. It was a wonderful to worship with friends from another church and to sit under a dear friend’s preaching. After church, my eldest daughter’s first question was why did they not take the Lord’s Supper.

The most common argument against weekly observance is that it will become an empty ritual, which is, sadly, entirely possible. But what if we thought that way about other spiritual disciplines? Reading Scripture, prayer, and gathering with other Christians can become routine as well. Our minds wander. Our hearts feel dry. But the solution is not to read the Bible less nor to spend less time in prayer.

The Lord’s Supper is certainly holy and should be received with reverence. To help guard against taking Communion carelessly, here are two practices. First, each week I read Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. This is a weekly reminder of the danger in approaching what is holy. Paul ends that passage by summoning us to self-examination before taking the bread and cup.

Second, after that warning, I give our congregation time for self-examination through a reading of God’s law, a confession of sin, and an assurance of pardon. I first saw this pattern in Gibson’s Be Thou My Vision, and I will provide a sample of my own at the end of this article.

Before we read God’s law, I remind them that we must judge ourselves according to God’s standard, not our own. We pray a prayer of confession. I then read a portion of Scripture that assures believers of forgiveness in Christ. Crucially, I am not granting absolution of sin; I am simply giving God’s Word to comfort those who are repentant of their sin.

When I first proposed taking the Lord’s Supper weekly, I said that we should do so for a year. After that, we could return to monthly, if that was everyone’s desire.

No one desired to do so.

Perhaps the most encouraging comments have been members who have mentioned making reconciliations with others before Sunday because they know that they will need to take the Lord’s Supper. Few practices provide such a consistent spiritual prod toward obedience.

The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance that our Lord has commanded to be practiced, so as long as a church is observing it, the frequency of observance is left for each congregation to decide.

So, how often do you believe the Lord’s Supper should be observed, and why?

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Reading of the Law

Hear God’s law as his will for your life:

Deuteronomy 10:12–13 | “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?

Confession of Sin

Confess your sins to God:

God Almighty,
We come in humble repentance
through the blood of Your Son
and by the drawing of Your Spirit.
Forgive us, O Lord,
for not walking in Your ways,
for choosing the paths of least resistance,
for failing to fear the holiness of Your name,
for fearing instead the thoughts and judgments of men,
for serving ourselves with all our might rather than You.
Our hearts and souls long to rebel against Your Word,
to do what we deem to be wise in our own eyes.
Grant us,
by the work of Christ our Lord,
grace to cleanse us
of every iniquity and transgression
against You.
And grant us grace,
through the power of Your Spirit,
to behold the goodness
of Your commandments.
Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

Having confessed our sins, receive these words of comfort from God’s Word:

1 John 1:6-9 | If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.