As an Episcopalian, I’ve always admired my church for taking a very Communion-centered approach to Christianity. So what I’m about to tell you is a little bit of a shock to me.

One of my mid-week spiritual inputs is listening to Rob Bell’s Mars Hill Bible Church podcast. Mars Hill is a non-denominational megachurch in Grand Rapids, MI. Being a small-church Episcopalian from south Louisiana, you can imagine that it was kind of difficult for me to admit that a Yankee megachurch pastor actually had a decent message…. and yet I listen.

Anyway, in last week’s Mars Hill podcast, before the actual lesson started, Rob was talking about Communion (This is the April 13th edition if anybody wants to go look it up in iTunes and listen to it):

There are people who come down to the front and try to get communion as fast as they can and get out of here as fast as they can… Some of them leave a half hour or 25 minutes before the service is over. That’s called the drive-through Eucharist, and it is kind of somewhere between the body and blood of Christ and McDonalds. We aren’t into that.

<snip>

If, for some reason you can only make it to 35 minutes of the service, then maybe there’s a service earlier or a service later, or maybe Jesus just doesn’t fit into your life. That’s fine, but let’s be honest about it and not try to trivialize something that’s very sacred and profound

Naturally, I was totally floored by this. I belong to one of the most Eucharist-centered churches I know of. We do communion every week. Our sermons are kept under 20 minutes so that the Communion service is the absolute focus of our worship… and yet, I would totally fall over dead out of shock if I heard such a direct and eloquent defense of the Eucharist in the Episcopal Church.

I wonder if our fear of confrontation is damaging the things we believe the church should stand for. I mean, seriously, nobody should have the edge on the Episcopal Church for communion-centerdness.