Shopping and Communion Kits

by Clay Gentry

What do shopping at Kroger and prepackaged communion kits have in common?

It starts with a small change I noticed at Kroger last night that completely changes how checking out feels. It used to be that after everything was scanned, the screen would scroll through line after line of your “Kroger Savings.” A quarter or two here, a dollar there, all piling up into “Your Total Savings.” It was a great little moment of payoff. You saw, all at once, the benefits of shopping at Kroger.

Now? The savings are unceremoniously tucked under each item as they're scanned.
I asked my cashier about it last night. He wasn’t sure why they changed it, but guessed it was probably to prevent people from thinking a sale price didn’t ring up. I guess that makes sense from an operational standpoint – maybe incrementally faster checkout?

But emotionally? It’s a total letdown. I had $8.25 in total savings last night, but spreading that discount across forty-two items, instead of 12 lines of savings at the end, made it feel like I didn’t save anything at all.

Without that moment of satisfaction before I pay, the "Kroger Card" program loses its appeal. I was thinking, “If there’s no joy at the end of this, I might as well just go to Walmart.”

And of course, it got me to thinking about Church life – got to get a lesson out of everything, right?

On paper, small structural or practical tweaks usually make sense. They solve an efficiency problem, save time, or remove a minor inconvenience. But in the process, we often inadvertently strip away the sensory rhythm that gave people joy and a sense of connection.

I’ve recently visited three congregations that are still using those pre-packaged, disposable communion kits – the plastic pods with the cellophane seal – a holdover from COVID, I guess.
Sure, from a practical standpoint, it makes total sense. They save time (you don’t have to pass out trays), they’re easier to prepare (you just open a box), and cleanup is a breeze (sort of). But it trades the symbolism of a shared memorial for the mechanics of a drive-thru.

The theology is technically still intact, but the experience has been flattened for the sake of convenience. Replacing the taste of real bread and the richness of real "fruit of the vine" with a styrofoam wafer and a sterile, lukewarm sip of grape-flavored chemical solution transforms a deeply tactile moment into something that feels… well, less than holy.

Now, a quick disclaimer: I’m certainly not passing judgment on congregations that choose to use these (for the record, we don’t use them at Jackson Heights). But I would encourage leadership in congregations who do use them to take a long, hard look at what is being lost through convenience – because it’s so much more than just a matter of taste.

Worse yet, I think it quietly undermines our argument for weekly observance of the Lord's Supper.

• We Teach: This is the most sacred, essential memorial of our faith – so vital that we assemble to observe it every first day of the week without fail.
• The Experience: Here is a 31-cent plastic pod with a circle of foam and chemical liquid that you snap open in five seconds. Who can say “Amen!” to that?

When we treat the Lord’s Supper as a cheap, disposable ritual, we erode the very reverence that makes us treasure coming to the Table on the first day of every week. Streamlining the Communion leaves us with a sterile substitute that’s hard to defend.

Convenience always comes at a price, and too often, the cost is the very joy, beauty, and reverence that made the experience worth having in the first place.