I am excited about The Table! This will be a new gathering at Light on the Hill at Mount Wesley beginning next month. The Table will be committed to welcoming folks who may feel uncomfortable in traditional church settings. We want to be intentional in our efforts to be inclusive and hospitable.
Monica O’Donnell describes The Table beautifully, “Around the table, love can flow, church can happen, barriers can come down, and the future can be shaped. Together, we prepare the meal, set the table, serve one another, pray with one another, worship with one another, fellowship with one another, and clean up together.” Monica goes on to say, “The Table is ‘church’ reinvented. Around the table, dinner conversations will center around food and faith stories. The table provides an opportunity for guests to share and hosts to listen. Our targeted guests will initially be a select group of friends from our marginalized community. We want our Mustard Seed friends who have become our family to be our first dinner guests.”
Writer and scholar, Leonard Sweet once said, Whenever I’m asked, ‘What is God up to?’ my most common answer is, ‘Have you heard of dinner church?” Dinner church is a type of microchurch where the meal and the table are not simply points of distinction from other churches; they are essential to the congregation’s makeup. Microchurches are intentionally small, which allows the type of inclusion that notices everyone and a place where all are heard and given the opportunity to contribute.
Lastly, Monica shared, “Authentic fellowship leads to discipleship, one meal at a time. When new disciples start sharing stories from the table with others, those others will come, and that is what I call “church.”
Vernon Fosner, who has written books on the dinner church movement says, “For Jesus, the dinner table was the invitation to faith. Jesus clearly embedded the gospel into the dinner-table theology.”
Please join us in praying for this new ministry and all that God will do through it and among the participants.
…Beth Palmer
