Category: community

Posted on

Lessons From The Man Who Ate New Orleans Part 2

Two of the seven cardinal virtues of New Orleans are generosity and resiliency. It may seem strange to put these two things together, but I hope to be able to relate them to each other. In Webster’s dictionary, generosity is defined as freedom in spirit or act, especially readiness in giving. Resiliency is defined as the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change. Both of these virtues are characteristic of New Orleans, and both should characterize those who follow Jesus.

Children of God should be the most resilient people. We should be able to adjust to change and recover from misfortune because we have resources to draw on. First, we have a Father who is sovereign over everything, who loves us with a perfect, everlasting love, and who always does good to us. We also have the Holy Spirit to comfort us and guide us. The third thing we have, or at least should have, is a family, a community of believers through whom God works. It is in relationship to others that we can be loved and comforted, and we can then love and comfort others who go through similar troubles. I don’t believe any of us can become resilient outside of community and relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We tend to think of generosity in terms of giving money or material things. That is one aspect, but being generous involves much more, and it is in that much more that this virtue is related to resiliency.As we become more resilient through the stuff we go through, we are called to freely give to others what has been given to us. We may give money or other material things. We may give work of some sort. Our gift may be words of encouragement and comfort, or simply a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Again, we must be in community. We cannot truly be generous with our resources unless we are in relationship. Without relationship, our words and actions can be empty or they can even cause further harm. The flip side of being generous in giving is being willing to be generous in our receiving. It takes humility to admit that we need help, to let others know what is going on in our lives, and to allow them the privilege of being generous in their giving to us. That is something that is hard for many of us, myself included. But it is a vital part of living in community.

Let us be generous to our brothers and sisters. Let us freely give and freely receive. As we serve one another, let us be strengthened so that we are resilient when tough times come.

Part 1 is here.

Posted on

Lessons From The Man Who Ate New Orleans

Back in January, Jan and I took part in A Place at the Table, a forum on food and togetherness. The first night of the event, we watched a film titled The Man Who Ate New Orleans, about a minister who ate at every restaurant in New Orleans to learn about the city and its people.The film discussed the seven cardinal virtues of New Orleans: community, generosity, openness to outsiders, celebration, resiliency, diversity, and tradition.

Most of you know how I feel about community. I believe community is one of the most important things in life. I would put it in the top three, after our relationship with God , and our families. In a sense, these three are intertwined. God calls us into community with the personal, communal Trinity, and we learn how to live in community in the family.

Eugene Peterson states, “There can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community.” We are called into community and are given the power to live in community by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of the resurrection we are given the Spirit who fills us and enables us to live the Jesus life. Unfortunately, over the centuries, following Jesus has been reduced to a “me and my Savior” mentality that sees the Christian life as an individual thing that really doesn’t concern anyone else. Multitudes of folks go from church to church in an attempt to find one that “feeds” them or that caters to their preferences. Others sit at home and watch a preacher on TV telling them what they want to hear.

Learning to live as a follower of Christ takes more than hearing a sermon, singing songs, or sitting in a class. It is not a private thing. It must be lived out in community with others, and that must go beyond what happens in a once-a-week gathering. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus takes this further when he commands us to love as he loved us. That is a sacrificial love that can only be shown in relationship with others.

Living in community is messy, whether that community is a neighborhood in a city or a group of Christians. We’re dealing with human beings here! If we seek to live in community with other believers, we will get dirty helping other believers, we will be frustrated by other believers, and we will be hurt by other believers. Look all through Scripture and other histories. You will not find a Utopian community. We will sin against one another. That is why we are called to be people of grace and forgiveness. When we have a true view of sin, we can forgive others and love them. Forgiveness is one of the things we must practice in order to live in community, along with being a friend who listens and understands compassionately.

Father, help us to live in resurrection community, loving one another by giving our lives, and extending grace and forgiveness to one another.

Posted on

Bread and Life

Two weekends ago, Jan and I participated in a forum on food, creativity, and togetherness called A Place at the Table. The event was put on by a group of local artists called Friday Arts Project. We were blessed to be able to help, in a small way, our friends organize and put on this event. A Place at the Table brought together  nationally known speakers such as Molly O’Neill, Peter Reinhart, Tom Hanchett, and local barbeque provocateur Dan Huntley. We experienced a number of thought provoking talks, a film about food and community in New Orleans, and some absolutely fantastic food.

Peter Reinhart is a professor at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte and is considered an expert on all things bread. On Saturday, he gave a talk on bread. That’s right. Bread. As Reinhart said, all writing about food is about something else, so his talk was about much more than just bread. The talk was titled, “The Leaven Factor: Bread as a Living Symbol of Who We Are as a People.” The theme was bread as a universal symbol of connectedness. I hope my thoughts here do his talk justice.

The word “companion” comes from two root words meaning “with” and “bread,” therefore a companion is “one with whom we break bread.” Breaking bread with a person means that you accept them. It also means that you are willing to share your life with them and make yourself vulnerable. As I wrote in Table As Truth, the masks come off around the table. Sharing food with another takes us out of ourselves, if only for a little while, and allows the other to get a peek behind the curtain.

The way we get bread is a metaphor for life, especially the life of faith. When the grain is ground into flour it dies. That is the first step. In leavened bread, yeast is then added. Yeast is a living thing that brings life to the flour. As the yeast works, the flour is transformed into dough. The dough rises and is kneaded into the shape the baker wants. Then the dough is placed into the oven to be baked. During the baking process there again is death. The yeast is killed by the heat of the oven so the bread can bake without growing anymore.

After the bread has baked, it is then ready to be a source of nourishment. The death in the baking process is necessary in order for the bread to be something that is good to eat. I don’t know too many people that eat dough on a regular basis. It just doesn’t seem to have the same appeal as a warm loaf of bread. Henri Nouwen, in Life of the Beloved, speaks of the bread used in communion and how it is taken, blessed, broken, and given. The bread must be broken before it can be given.

Life as a follower of Jesus is much the same. Jesus said that whoever wants to find their life must first lose it. We must die to our own ambitions, to our own way of living life, in order to be made alive in Christ. I don’t see much in Scripture that tells us to come to Christ so all our problems will be solved, with everything we ever wanted in this life there for the taking. Jesus simply says, “Follow me,” and then lets us know that doing so means we give everything else up. In dying to ourselves, we find that we have true, abundant life. It doesn’t stop there though. The dying process is not a one time thing. Jesus calls us to take up our cross every day. That’s more than just carrying a burden through life. As we go through our our day-to-day, we are called to die to what we want and do what our Lord wants. Like the dough in the oven, we die in order to be something that nourishes others. Like the communion bread, we are broken in order that we might be given. In the process, we are transformed, like the dough, into something that brings life to those who taste and glory to the One who shapes us and “bakes” us.

Let us not despise the grinding of the mill, the heat of the oven, or our brokenness. We can be assured that they are forming Christ within us and indeed making us bread for the world.

Posted on

A Place at the Table

This past weekend, Jan and I were blessed to participate in a forum on food and togetherness. I’ll have some of my thoughts here in a few days. In the meantime here is a recap of the event by local Charlotte food writer, Keia

Posted on

A Christmas Program

Last month, I went with Jan to a Christmas program at the school where she teaches. As I sat watching the program, I started thinking that I was at a Christmas program that neither of our children were in, that I didn’t know any of the students, and that the only reason I was there because some of Jan’s students were participating. And, I was enjoying it. As I wondered why, I realized it was because it was a program that was full of the innocence of children, the joy of simple participation, and unconditional love. Later, I thought how that simple school Christmas program was a good picture of what the church is (or should be).

The participants in the program were not professional musicians or actors. While the performance was very good, there were notes that were missed and lines that were flubbed. It was what was there that is most important. There was innocence, an innocence that allowed each child to simply go through their part in the program and not worry about any missteps. There was also a joy in simply doing something in front of their families and friends. They were simply doing something and having fun doing it. None of the children ran crying from the stage because they had missed a cue or hit the wrong note. There was no embarrassment. This was because the children knew that they were loved by their parents and teachers, and that this love did not depend on performance. The audience applauded each part of the program, and showed sincere appreciation for the efforts of the participants.

This is how the church should be. Each of us has a part to play in the “program” that is the church. We are all called to be ministers of the grace of God. Whether that part is “big” or “small,” we all have something to do in the body. We are called to be as children in our trust of the Father. It is an innocent trust that knows that, no matter what, our Abba has everything under control and loves us. Knowing this allows us to do what we do with joy, because we know that the end result doesn’t depend on us and our performance doesn’t determine our acceptance. We can miss cues, flub lines, and hit the wrong notes and our Father loves us the same.

That unconditional love of God calls us to love each other in the same way. Some of us struggle with a critical way of looking at the world. That is wrong. Just as no one criticized the children for not being perfect, so we should not criticize our brothers and sisters who may not do things as well as we do, or who may not be as far along in certain parts of their journey. We must remember that each one of us is solely responsible to God, and how he has called us may not be the same as how he has called another. We are also called to lay down our lives for our brothers. That will help free them to serve with joy and an innocent trust in the God who is sovereign and who can take our poorest efforts and use them for his glory and the advancement of his kingdom.

Let us be as children as we do what God has called us to do. Let us rest in the Father as we work, trusting him completely. Let us take joy in our calling, and let others know the source of that joy. Let us love one another as Christ has loved us and allow each other the freedom to play out our calling, even when it doesn’t look all that pretty.

Posted on

Reflections on a Year

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This quote from A Tale of Two Cities doesn’t exactly describe this past year, but the highs were high and the lows were low. There have been things that I hope I never have to go through again and things that I hope continue on and on.

The first three months of 2012 brought us the end of a small fellowship of believers we had been leading and the end of what we thought was a close friendship. Those months were especially hard on me. If you want to  get an idea of where I was during that time you can go back and read some of the posts from January to April. It was a dark time that I hope to never experience again.

In April, we began meeting with a group of believers on Sunday nights as part of a church plant. God showed his sense of humor by leading a guy who had no desire to go back to the institutional church to a church that is part of a denomination. As we quickly found out, this group is different. They met on Sunday nights for a meal, and then had a worship service, ending with communion. There were also groups that met during the week for a meal, a Bible study, or just hanging out together. We were welcomed and accepted from the beginning. The biggest draw for me was the mission of the church to benefit our city and to help each other learn to follow Jesus.

The defining moment came pretty quickly. You can read about it here. We had been looking for community, and had tried to create it. Those attempts had been a miserable failure. Now the Father had led us into a community of faith that already existed, and that was truly centered in Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel. As the months have gone by, we have grown to love these brothers and sisters and God has given us opportunities to minister to them, and be ministered to.

In May, our son Josh got married. His wife is a beautiful young woman, and is a blessing to us. We have grown to love her as one of the family. Josh was able to land a job at a local architecture firm, and we are rejoicing at God’s blessing. As the year continued, there were a couple of dips in the road, but for the most part the journey has been pretty good. God has continued to teach us and bless us, and draw us closer to himself.

When this year began, I had an inkling that God was about to do something in my life. Little did I know what that would mean. I definitely would have done things differently had I been in charge, but then we wouldn’t be where we are now. I have been learning that though the Father’s mercy may look like something far different, I can trust his goodness and love. I am learning to trust my Abba’s love, leaving things in his hands.

It’s been an interesting year. There have been some tough times and there have been some good times. The good has definitely outweighed the bad. We are in a good place, and I’m looking forward to how the Father is going to work in me in 2013. To quote another piece of literature:

“The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
and I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And wither then? I cannot say.”
Posted on

Table As Truth

This is the third installment in a series on table fellowship. I approach this subject with a bit of trepidation. Truth can be a touchy subject, as the term has been thrown around by those who believe that “truth” is the way they see things and those who believe that there is no real truth. I also wanted to avoid over spiritualizing the subject. There are a number of valid ways to approach the subject. I hope I have chosen one of them.

Among the definitions of truth in Webster’s dictionary are fidelity, constancy, sincerity in action, character, and utterance, and the body of real things. Truth is an important, yet seemingly rare, quality. Even those who believe that truth is relative want to know that they can trust certain people to be honest with them. Unfortunately, there seems to be an increasingly smaller number of folks who can be trusted to have fidelity, constancy, sincerity, and who are real.

One of the things that has become evident to me is the difficulty in being untrue when gathered around a table with family or friends. I guess it is possible to not be real while attending a large banquet or similar gathering, but small gatherings tend to be more intimate and revealing. When around the table, it is hard to fade into the woodwork and disappear. Conversation flows around the table, and the more time we spend with others, sharing food and talking, the more we get to know the real person. The masks come off around the table.

Inviting and accepting invitations to the table has long been a sign of acceptance and caring about the other. It is one way we can show love to others. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, we become real when we are loved and accepted. As we grow into that acceptance and love, we allow others to see who we really are, and we learn to accept them as they are. It is around the family table that children first learn social skills, and it is around the table that adults continue the lesson.

In Year of Plenty, Craig L. Goodwin writes about his family’s trip to Thailand:

Our experiences with food in Bangkok reminds me of how a pastor friend from Brazil, Claudio Oliver, helped me understand two unique words used to talk about food in Latin America. He explained to me that “alimento is what nutritionists recommend for you; comida is what your mum makes for you. Comida is what you would call soul food: family together, people talking, warm fresh veggies, sweet potatoes, corn bread, laughing, crying, prayer, thanksgiving, culture, old history, little ones learning who we are through food.” 

Let us learn fidelity, constancy, sincerity in action, character, and utterance, and being real around the table as we share food, drink, and conversation.
Posted on

Table As Beauty

This is the second post in a series on table fellowship.

Beauty is defined as a pleasing quality associated with harmony, excellence of craftsmanship, a quality that is most effective or gratifying. The table can be characterized by each of these things.

Gathering around a table with friends or family promotes harmony, as food is passed around, stories are shared, and social skills are learned and sharpened. It is at table that real communication happens, and it is there that people get to know each other. Folks who gather around a table on a regular basis tend to be more accepting of each other, and more gracious. One of the ways Jesus showed his identification with the least of these was joining them for meals.

One of the joys of life is sitting down at a table that has been carefully prepared with lovingly crafted dishes. Whether the food is gourmet or “country style,” served on fine china or paper plates, the craftsmanship of a well put-together meal is evident. If it’s a large banquet, a family meal, or a group of friends at a barbecue, a meal is a thing of beauty if it is done with care and creativity.

Table fellowship can be very effective and immensely gratifying. Breaking bread together was one of the more important aspects of the life of the early church. Gathering at meals was so important that one of the things involved in church discipline was exclusion from the table. In my own experience, the times I have been challenged the most, the times I have felt loved and accepted the most, have been times when I have studied Scripture or just hung out with folks with whom I have just shared a meal, a cup of coffee, or a pint. Those are the times that have been most effective and gratifying in my journey.

It’s been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That may be true, but I know that when I am gathering with friends or family around a table, I am in the midst of beauty.

Table As Goodness

Posted on

Table As Goodness

In our fellowship, three of the things we emphasize are goodness, beauty, and truth. In this series, I want to look at table fellowship using these three ideas. This first post will focus on the table as goodness.

In the beginning chapters of Genesis, the statement was made that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Yes, he had fellowship with his Creator, but there was something missing. God brought Eve to Adam. They were put together for fellowship, for sharing life, and for caring for creation together.

All through Scripture, the theme of the goodness of fellowship is continued. The Hebrew word hesed carries the idea of both kindness and goodness, and many times is used in the context of relationships. Many times this fellowship is around the table. Hospitality was an important part of the Israelites’ faith. When God delivered them from bondage in Egypt, he began their journey with a meal. In Deuteronomy 14:22-26, the people were told to take the tithe of their crops for the year and have a family feast at the Tabernacle. If they lived too far away, they were to exchange the tithe for silver and spend it on the makings of a feast at a closer location.

In the New Testament, Jesus came eating and drinking. His first miracle took place at a wedding feast, and he spent enough time at dinner parties that his critics called him a glutton and a drunk. Jesus spoke of the feast to be celebrated in the kingdom of God. The early church was known for many things. Two of these were a devotion to fellowship and a devotion to eating together. What we call the Lord’s Supper today was just a part of a full meal the church ate together. In the epistles, we are told to practice hospitality. No matter what the enemies of the early church said, they had to admit that the followers of Jesus loved others. One of the ways they loved was by welcoming others to the table.

God said that it was not good for us to be alone. It’s good for us to have fellowship with others, to share our lives with others, and to help and encourage others. One of the best places to do these things is the table. Whether it’s a cup of coffee and dessert, a pint in a pub, or a full meal, spending time with people around a table is a good thing.

Posted on

Come As You Are, Bring What You Can

A few weeks ago a friend was talking with us about how she felt a little self conscious about bringing food to dinners and other gatherings because she didn’t cook, and because she didn’t shop at the same grocery stores as a lot of the other people. It’s an understandable feeling. In today’s culture we are bombarded with the message that what you wear, what car you drive, where you shop, and what you eat determines your worth. Unfortunately, this can even be the case within the church. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul addresses the problem of some eating the food that they had brought without sharing with those who had none, and getting drunk while others had nothing to drink. There were evidently wealthy individuals in the church who refused to share with those who were less well off. James writes about Christians who were showing favoritism to rich folks (possibly to get their tithes? 🙂 ), while treating the poor among them like dirt.

Apparently, the early church hadn’t moved far from the attitude of the Pharisees and those who gave and attended dinners to enhance their social standing. Of course, we here in the enlightened 21st century have moved beyond such attitudes, right? Right? *crickets* In a post titled, Accepting a Seat At the Table, Craig at Throwing Bricks writes this:

 It’s strange but I often find Christians who are hesitant to fellowship with other followers of Christ who don’t share their particular set of doctrinal beliefs, political affiliations, worship preferences, social / economic status, race, age or perceived level of maturity.  They are more concerned with being proved right than being with Jesus.  It’s as though we are still abiding by the old rules of table fellowship.  I have some old friends that border on fundamentalism and though we all believe in Jesus and strive to follow his teachings we remain distant due to certain interpretations of scripture.  What gets me is that I have no problem calling them brother and sister but I’m not sure they would reciprocate that sentiment and it sucks.

Evidently, accepting others is an ongoing problem in the church. Sometimes we reject others due to different interpretations of Scripture, sometimes because of social standing. We still seem to have a hard time accepting those whom Jesus has already accepted. Craig also writes:

Jesus didn’t discriminate based on any of these factors but rather invited anyone to come.  To respond to Jesus’ invitation and accept a seat at the table is to accept Jesus himself and everyone else at the table regardless of personal differences.

Our Rabbi, the one we are called to follow, invited everyone to come and accepted all who came. Should we do less. 

To finish the story, I assured our friend that I knew that the folks in her group wouldn’t care where her food came from, who had cooked it, or what bag she carried it in. She is fortunate because she is part of a community of faith that loves her for who she is, not for any standard of “worth” the culture might try to put on her.