If you grew up in a rural area (as I did), you might hear talk of hedging the table. If you grew up in a less rural setting, you may have heard of fencing the table. If you are a particularly zealous sort, you may have been seeking to guard the table. They all refer to exactly the same things: making sure the appropriate people receive the Lord’s Supper and those who ought not to take it know they ought not to take it.

Different churches will hedge/fence/guard the table a little differently. Some of that will depend on their ecclesiology and some of it will depend on their particular view of the Lord’s Supper and what, exactly, is going on when we take it. But make no mistake, just about every church hedges/fences/guards the table at some level. Most churches do not think the Lord’s Supper is for literally everyone under the sun without caveat. As such, the vast majority of them will say something that identifies who ought to take it and who should not.

I thought it might be helpful to share how we do this at Oldham Bethel Church. Typically, we ask three rhetorical questions. Those three questions are these:

1. Have you trusted in the Lord Jesus personally?
2. Am I baptised & in church membership?
3. Am I on good terms with other members?

As we highlight these three questions, we provide a little bit of explanation around each one. Though the specific wording might change, it is usually some form of the following:

1. The Lord’s Supper is a thanksgiving for the saving work of the Lord Jesus. We are looking back and remembering that Jesus died to save his people and paid for their sins specifically on the cross. If we have not trusted in Jesus personally then our sins are not forgiven so this is not something we can celebrate and cannot join in.
2. When we put our trust in Jesus, we join the universal church. But nobody can see our forgiven sin or membership of the universal church. We make this visible by being baptised and joining a local church. This is both a matter of obedience to Jesus and a way of having our belief in Christ affirmed by his people. Belonging to a local church is not only biblical and a matter of obedience, it is a key means God gives to assure us that our faith is genuine. Moreover, when we take communion we are not only saying ‘I belong to Jesus’, we are also saying ‘I belong to his people’. We cannot claim we love God but don’t love his people and we cannot say we meaningfully love his people while refusing to join in membership with them and insisting we want to stand apart from them. If we have not been baptised and joined in membership to a local church (whether this one or another one), we cannot credibly take the Lord’s Supper.
3. You may have personal faith, be baptised and belong to a local church. But if we are not on good terms with other believers in the church, we cannot meaningfully affirm our fellowship with them. There is a break in our fellowship. Jesus talked about making peace with your brother before making any offerings at the altar (cf. Matthew 5:24). There is something very important about being right with God’s people and ensuring we are in good standing with one another before affirming our right standing with God. The Bible has a lot to say about what our relationships with each other suggest about our relationship with God. And so, if there is an issue between you and another member of the church, if there has been some break in fellowship between you, don’t take the Lord’s Supper now. Rather, go and sort out that issue with your brother or sister and then join in next week.
4. If you can say ‘yes’ to all these questions, then we would encourage you to join in and partake with us.

We believe these three questions help us understand what we are doing in the Lord’s Supper and help us to guard who can and cannot join in. We aim to make clear that it for believers who can affirm all that we are doing in the Lord’s Supper, who themselves are affirmed as such by their own local churches through baptism and membership, and who are in good standing and right fellowship with their brothers and sisters in Christ.