To answer your good question, let’s read 1 Corinthians 11:20-22, “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.” 

This was a stern rebuke to the Corinthian church.  I want us to look at verse 20 in the AMPC version for greater clarity.  That says, “So when you gather for your meetings, it is not the supper instituted by the Lord that you eat.”  The abuse at the Lord’s Supper was so great that, in their actions, the Corinthians were not truly remembering the Lord. 

In the early days of the church, it seems they had times of food and fellowship preceding the remembrance meeting, and these events were called “love feasts.” Although these feasts were not identified in the Bible precisely as such, we do find them described here in verse 21, 2 Peter 2:13, and in Jude 12.  Ignatius of Antioch (a disciple of John’s), writing around 90 AD mentions the love feast in his letter to the Smyrnaeans.  The fact they were having these feasts is rather obvious.

The abuse in these feasts is pointed out in verse 21, showing that some were greedy and eating their food while some poor believers had no food at all.  Some drank to excess, and some remained thirsty.  Paul was telling the Corinthians, who had incorporated this love feast with the remembrance feast, that this behavior was inappropriate, and they had lost the meaning of what the remembrance feast was supposed to represent. 

The rebuke in verse 22 was not really forbidding the believers from having any meals in the church gathering.  Rather, they were being told that if they had no regard for each other and ate only to fill themselves without regard to their fellow believers who were less fortunate, they should just eat at home and not offend or abuse others in their meals. 

The Lord’s Supper is an opportunity to worship the Savior, remember His sacrifice of Himself for our sins, and “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (verse 26). Some of the Corinthians were using the occasion of the Lord’s Supper and the associated love feasts to satisfy their own fleshly desires, turning what should be spiritual and holy into something carnal and corrupt. The aim of agape love is to benefit others; the misbehavior at the early church’s love feasts worked strongly against that purpose.

I see many church groups today have separate ‘fellowship buildings’ to enjoy meals together because of this very portion.  Having a place to fellowship and eat together is nice and there is nothing in scripture to forbid this.  However, unless we learn the lesson that is being taught here, we have missed the whole point.  The point is reverencing the Lord’s Supper and not behaving in such a way that illustrates that we are only concerned about ourselves.  (CC)  (529.2)