Rather than thinking of the three musketeers, I'm thinking once again of fencing tables in the church. When up in Edmonton watching soccer last weekend, one thought came to mind "it would be a rather safe bet that none of the local CanRCs are celebrating the Lord's Supper this week given the number of visitors."
How might one deal with the issue of large numbers of visitors to such a service? The way that things are currently done in the CanRC is through a system of attestations, but how might one process these all and be able to connect a face with an attestation (if you have a large number of visitors)? Are we to force people to produce photo ID during the service to participate? At the same time, I'm not a fan of using denominational affiliation as a "ticket." In pretty much every denomination there seem to be those who genuinely believe and those who don't.
The Sunday that my parents visited was also a Sunday in which the PCA that I've been at celebrated the Lord's Supper. The system was more the verbal warning one. Perhaps those who would regard this as "open communion" might be assuaged somewhat with the following blurb pillaged from Rev. George Vanpopta's blog:
The mistake of these brothers is in claiming that these churches with whom we have entered into ecclesiastical fellowship hold to the practice of an open Lord's Supper table. These churches do not hold to this practice. They may fence the table in way different from how the Canadian Reformed Churches do, but they fence the table. To say that they hold to an open table is not right.
Even a verbal warning, as is often done in the OPC, is not an open table. When persistent sinners are warned to stay away lest God's judgment break out against them, that's not an open table. We might disagree that it is the best way to fence the table, but it's not an open table. To say so is wrong.
Is it possible to mix the two systems somewhat? To lean towards a verbal warning for guests (perhaps requiring a statement of adherence to something like the Apostle's creed), with members of the local church upheld to a higher standard (as more is also known about their behaviour)? Should all those not taking part be asked to leave the sanctuary before the celebration (as historically has been the case in places)?
I think that there is some level of responsibility played on the church leadership for fencing, but at the same time I find an unwillingness to celebrate with other believers equally disturbing. What level of uniformity of belief should be required?
