Many of the churches I attended did the once a month thing. It always bothered me since the Biblical teaching says to do it every time we meet not every first Sunday of the month. It bothered me more that the main reason behind every church doing that was logistics and business. It was too distracting to the main service, or too big a challenge to do it each week. It was never a Biblical reason for only once a month but some pragmatic thing. Does that bother anyone else?
Don't let it bother you too much, ewok. Most of our communion practices (and most other practices for that matter) are based on tradition, not biblical teaching. The Bible just doesn't say much about the practical side of how to run a church or worship service. It deals mostly with the relationship side of things.
Actually the Bible does NOT say do communion every time you come together.
Jesus did it with the disciples once, at the Passover - as recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. As far as we know he didn't do communion as part of his meals with the disciples before his ascension. There could be an argument for doing it annually, at a Maundy Thursday seder type meal, if you wanted to follow Jesus example.
Yet, Jesus did say, regarding the cup, "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." But he didn't say how often that should be.
The early church in Corinth celebrated communion when they had their fellowship meal. Like with Jesus, the communion was part of a meal. They may or may not have done that weekly - it simply doesn't say. Even if the Corinthian church did take communion once a week, I'm not sure we'd want to model our churches after the church in Corinth. Paul's letter to them was to correct all the bad things going on in that church. Paul told them:
In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good...What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not! 1 Corinthians 11:17,22 (NIV)
He was referring to their version of the Lord's Supper, and they made a royal mess out of communion.
Beyond the pragmatic and logistic excuses for infrequency I have also heard that it takes away from it being "special". It is commonly heard that if we had communion everyday that it would become ritualistic and mechanical rather than springing from the heart. Right or wrong... that's what we hear.
Even then, only 20-30 years after Jesus death, communion had lost its sense of remembrance and celebration for that congregation. Maybe they were doing communion every week - we don't know for sure - but for whatever reason, it certainly had ceased to be "special."
Like I said in an earlier post on this thread: I have friends I love who celebrate communion once a week, once a month, and once a quarter. I have friends who believe in open communion and friends who hold to closed communion. Friends who would never do grape juice and friends who would never do wine. I happen to like the way we do communion - that is one reason I go to my church.