Date of Award

2-2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

Doug Blazer, DMin

Second Advisor

Phil Newell, DMin

Third Advisor

Leonard I. Sweet, PhD

Abstract

Bread and wine are metaphors for the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus the Christ. Jesus himself stated that these two metaphors are to represent his sacrifice for humans, yet these metaphors have lost much of their importance in present-day Christianity. Pentecostal churches specifically seem to have forgotten what the bread and wine symbolize. Due to cultural influences, these churches no longer place emphasis on celebrating what they call Communion.

Many Pentecostal Christians today attend a service that is convenient, efficient, and that meets all their spiritual needs at one stop—like a Super Walmart of Worship due to the cultural influences of commodification, McDonaldization, and consumerism. This shift in the way many Pentecostal churches operate has caused them to celebrate or remember Jesus’ sacrifice less frequently, and the metaphors of the bread and wine lose the strength of meaning in Christian lives.

This dissertation consists of six sections. Section 1 defines the problems commodification, McDonaldization, and consumerism have caused in the Church and traces the Church’s roaming to the point of having (or it has) nearly lost sight of the meaning of the sacraments. Section 2 identifies multiple metaphors and proposes an alternative solution to the problem in Pentecostal churches. Section 3 provides possible ways to remember the importance of the symbols of bread and wine. Section 4 provides a description of the Artifact intended to help churches remember what Jesus has done for them. The Artifact is a nonfiction book in the form of a lectionary. Section 5 contains the Artifact Specification, describing the intended self-publishing of the lectionary. Section 6 is the postscript to the work described above. The appendix to this written statement is the lectionary itself entitled Table Liturgy, which is based upon the 2019 church year.

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