Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. Acts 20:7-8 NKJV

In the early church, the central focus of the church worship service was communion and preaching of the Word. Communion, i.e., the Lord’s Super, was an intimate sharing of one person to another to express the true union of all believers. This union was an act of uniting and believers continuing in a state of unity (Acts 2:42, 46).

For the early church Christians, communion was a time of intimacy with the Lord and His Body around a table of bread and wine. The bread represented the body of the Lord and the wine was emblematic of the blood that He shed. As Apostle Paul taught the Corinthians Christians, “[t]he cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16-17). The table speaks of a place of love, feasting and fellowship. In the same way that giving is an expression of love, communion is an expression of union–oneness. This practice of communion (Koinonia, Greek word) and oneness afforded believers a sense of fellowship, partnership, social intercourse with one another.

Communion should never be forsaken (1 Cor. 11:27-29). When a believer forsakes communion they are also, vitally speaking, forsaking union with Christ and with other believers. Beyond an outright refusal to partake, communion can also be forsaken when believers partake irreverently (1 John 1:7-9; Heb. 10: 26-29), and forsake the assembling of ourselves for a communion service (Heb. 10:25). Forsaking communion circumvents union (Eph. 4:3-6). Receiving communion should always make us better—not worse—because communion is an expression of union and unity (1 Cor. 11:17-21).

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