Clergy Support Memorial Church (CSMC) has three religious sacraments. Please contact us if you want to learn more, or if you seek support for including these rites in your own life.

A sacrament is a transformational ritual of faith. The sacrament is, as often attributed to St Augustine, an outward (visible) sign of an inward grace. We believe in the power of God to transform a life both through inner, spiritual receptiveness and through the community of love that is God’s faithful people. To choose this power to guide one’s life, to declare it publicly with intentionality and embodied acts, i.e. “ritual”, is to magnify its presence in daily living.

Communion

This sacrament, observed by most Christian denominations, is drawn from the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ final week before his execution (e.g. Luke 22:14-20). Jesus presented simple bread and common wine of the Passover meal to his disciples, representing his body and his blood, to be taken physically into their lives in order to be changed – just as Jesus, in life, always sought to change hearts, spirits, and lives.

Communion, also called Eucharist, is usually celebrated at an altar in a church, but it doesn’t have to be. A service of Eucharist is regularly offered, for example, at a hospital bedside, in a family home or community hall – wherever “two or more” might be gathered to remember and receive Christ’s ultimate sacrifice in the name of the healing of the world.

CSMC practises an “open table”, where all are invited to sincerely partake, regardless of faith background or prior Christian formation. We believe in the transformative power of joining spiritually with Jesus in that upper room, taking his words into our hearts: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Baptism

Baptism is a ritual that enacts a washing away of the old or worldly, and an entrance – spiritually, a “resurrection” – into new life through the community of God. Again based in scripture, we follow Jesus’ example of insisting on being baptized by John the Baptizer (Matt. 3:11-15).

The ritual uses water for a symbolic cleansing (by pouring over the head, by sprinkling, or by immersion) and invokes the trinitarian names of God to bless the believer in recognition of their sacred belonging: traditionally, in the name of “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit;” or alternatively, of “the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer,” and other language for the Trinity.

Significantly, the sacrament includes the gathered community, especially parents, guardians, and congregation, who are called to nurture and guide the newly baptized on their Christian journey.

CSMC offers baptism for all ages. We recognize prior baptisms received in other Christian communities, and believe the sacrament has been at work in that life no matter the age or tradition in which it was received.

We likewise respect that not all sincere Christians are baptized, and we do not believe baptism to be a pre-requisite for inclusion in the Christian family, for belonging to God, or for receiving the Eucharist.

Marriage

When the Church teaches that marriage between two persons is a sacrament, it is saying that the couple’s relationship expresses a distinctive mutuality of love, trust, and vulnerability between them, which is a God-led spiritual discipline. Marriage offers a unique environment for practicing both humility and strength in the name of something bigger than oneself – and permits of grace when one inevitably fails. Thus, we practice in this human relationship something of what God call us to in covenant faith. We also believe that no matter the context a marriage ceremony is a service of invocation of the sacred.

In a sacramental marriage, Grace is made present to the spouses in their union and also flows through them to their family and community, so that God’s love may be amplified in the world.