1-SHOT COMMUNION CUPS GET RAVES, FLAK.

Byline: Tara Gruzen Chicago Tribune 

It's just the thing the Jetsons would have loved. Easy and convenient.

It's a prepackaged, presealed, uncontaminated, single-serving communion cup. Each holds juice for one person, covered by a foil wrapper, topped with a wafer, also in a foil wrapper.

The Celebration Cup is the brainchild of Jim Johnson, president of the new Chicago-based Compak Corp. In the three months since he introduced the product on the market, Johnson said, he has sold it to thousands of churches throughout the world.

But to some theologians, the prepackaged cup threatens the symbolism of Holy Communion, which celebrates the Last Supper of Jesus with a ceremonial meal of bread and wine or grape juice.

The cup is marketed at Protestant churches, and at least two in the Chicago area - the Dependable Missionary Baptist Church and the Maryland Avenue Baptist Church - have taken to the idea.

To them, the prepackaged communion is a way to cut down on waste and eliminate the possibility of transmitting viruses and disease. It is not about the demise of centuries-old tradition nor is it the latest example of modern society's voracious appetite for convenience.

At the storefront Dependable Missionary, eucharistic ministers take the serving of the Celebration Cup as seriously as they would any other communion. They ceremoniously clad themselves in white gloves, the women cover their heads, and the plastic cups are lined up on a silver platter.

There is a cry from the choir as the organist delves into a 10-minute version of ``Jesus Loves Me,'' and the children gather in the front of the church to watch the ceremony.

Since the members of the Southern Baptist church already take the communion wine in individual cups that are distributed to them in their pews, using the prepackaged communion doesn't mark a major departure. The only real difference, as they see it, is that they don't have to prepare the communion themselves.

But to the Rev. Cynthia Campbell, a Presbyterian minister and president of the McCormick Theological Seminary, that's just the problem.

``It says, oh gee, nobody has to work to prepare the meal or clean it up, but that's supposed to be part of it,'' said Campbell, who has seen the product advertised in religious magazines. ``It's supposed to be a very meaningful servant role.''

Presbyterians also take communion wine from single-serving cups - unlike Catholics or Episcopalians, who drink from a common cup - but Campbell said it's the symbolism that bothers her. That the words ``communion'' and ``community'' are so similar is not a coincidence, she said.

``I would say that this is not aesthetically appropriate. It violates the symbol of being at a common table with food that is being passed around,'' she said.

The idea of a serve-yourself communion is even more remote to church leaders who symbolize the common meal by asking parishioners to file out of the pews, receive the communion wafer from a priest or eucharistic minister and then drink from one chalice.

But according to Johnson, the Celebration Cup's manufacturer and a Protestant who grew up in a devout family, the prepackaged communion is not a means to change religious practices. His goal is merely to make communion more accessible.

He envisions it as a way to deliver communion to people in remote areas - such as soldiers who are overseas or residents of rural areas in countries without reliable transportation. In the past year he has traveled as far as China, Russia, South America and Africa to sell the cups.