Thousand Acre Church

I’m still talking about communion here.  “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  So,… Eating the Lord’s Supper is how we proclaim the Lord’s death.  Huh?  How do you proclaim the Lord’s death by consuming saltines and grape juice?  I’m not saying that’s not a legitimate way to observe communion; I’m just wondering, “How does my consumption of bread and wine proclaim the Lord’s death?” [Read more →]

The question that I can’t dismiss is this, “If sharing meals was so central and characteristic to the mission of Jesus and the first century Church, then why don’t we eat together anymore?”

I mean, I hardly catch more than four meals a week at the dinner table with my OWN family, and WE ARE INTENTIONAL  about eating together.  Potlucks are periodic (usually annual) events at many churches, but they aren’t daily events, for sure.  I’ve heard people shrug off “social” meals beause they aren’t “deep enough”, but I still think that there is something important about eating regularly with your community.  Even when it’s only “social”, it continues to provide the appropriate social space for people to practice sharing bits of stories about who they are.  Those stories become scripts and those scripts become identities.  So, just plain ol’, common, “social” meals generate identities grounded in a community.  The meal sharing community affirms or challenges these pictures of identity.  Experienced members of the community have the opportunity to edit and revise the unhealthy scripts and identity pictures of younger members while they nurture the life-giving, healthy scripts.  Life is renewed and revisioned at the table.

I think there are so many experiences that we can unearth and share in the common meal.  I’m excited to begin exploring the possibilities that the shared-table presents us as God’s people.  I’m eager to exegete my own life and practice and to discover the previously overlooked (by me) meal practices of Jesus and his followers.

Why do you think people don’t eat together anymore?

I just can’t help it… There are some discussions among friends about communion, and I’ve got to throw in my two chips worth of ideas.  Except its more than two chips… its more like a hundred chips, so I’ve got to reply with blog posts instead of blog comments.  You can check out their thoughts on their blogs (if you’d like to know what inspired me to write my own posts) but it won’t be necessary (see their blogs here and here).  I intend to be pretty thorough.

Firstly, I don’t have anything particularly interesting to add to the discussion about communion that originated with my own thoughts.  I have been reading some interesting books on common meals and communal-ism (not “communism”) that I think offer interesting perspectives on first century Christian practice, and I’ll share some of those authors’ thoughts and proposals.  I do, however, think that Angela and I have some contemporary experiences related to “table-sharing” that shape our understanding of the sociological effects of meal sharing practices (some of which are expressed in the practices of the early church).  I’ll share our meal-sharing experiences as it seems appropriate to the discussion, but I don’t assume our experiences should be normative for all churches or all faithful Christians. [Read more →]

A dated quote (25 June 2007, find the entire article here) from City Journal reads:

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities.

[Read more →]

I wrote a post last week on the Collection as initiated by the apostle Paul which served as a symbol of unity in the early Christian church.  My post was mostly a summary of something I heard in a lecture given by Anglican Bishop N T Wright at Regent University.  You can review that post here.

The challenge that I was left with last week, and that I have been bound to consider for several days, is this: How can we apply the principles of the Collection as a way to encourage unity in the church?  Or, what symbols or rituals do we have today that may serve in place of the Collection?  (I should affirm before I get too far that ‘unity’ in the church is not the same as ‘consensus’.  Commitment to the relationship and continual fellowship can occur in spite of disagreements.  ‘Concensus’ attempts to resolve disagreements into new agreements.  ‘Unity’ attempts to preserve fellowship among family members and accepts disagreement as a natural part of community life.)

Here are some ideas for contemporary “Collections”:

1. Angela and I are involved in a Sunday School class at our church.  Demographically we have some affinity with the people that attend this class (i.e., several kids in our household, late twenty- or early thiry-somethings, mostly raised or spiritually nurtured in the evangelical tradition, etc.).  It is clear, however, that there are some large differences in our perspective on the Christian life and what it means to “follow Jesus” among the folks in this class.  One of the symbols of unity in this class is like the Collection.  We bring meals to couples who have recently had children.  We ritually pass around a sign-up sheet and publish the list on the group list online.  Participation in this activity symbolizes solidarity with the class.  It affirms that you are committed to the relationship in spite of significant disagreements.
2. Every Monday night during the warmer months our neighbors meet together to share a meal.  There are all kinds of people at these cookouts, but their regular attendance affirms their commitment to one another.  Bringing a dish to pass acts as a symbol.  Eating what someone else brought is more than substenance, it is symbolic of the unity of this fellowship of neighbors.
3. Communion and baptism are traditional symbols of solidarity in the church.  Primarily I would probably consider them as symbols of identification with the death and ressurection of Jesus the King, but then (because we ALL participate and recognize the invitation for people with different theological perspectives to participate) they are secondarily symbols of unity in the body of God’s kingdom people.  This point would be too weighty theolgically to pursue further on a blog post because of the history-and-tradition and denominational baggage that goes along with baptism and communion, BUT I think we could at least say that a “shared meal” of some sort would act as a symbol a unity (no matter if that meal is technically considered a eucharist).
4. We had some neighbors come over to help us rake our leaves at the beginning of spring.  This act of service was also an expression of commitment to a neighbor and a neighborhood.  The most powerful feelings of unity occur, in my experience, when you work alongside someone.  Throw a shared meal in there, too, and POW… missional and communal big bang!
5. Attending a family or neighborhood event is another “Collection” type of symbol.  The best examples are weddings and funerals.  These often incorporate some of the symbols listed above, but they are unique in that they are often once-in-a-lifetime events.  Even so, they are opportunities for people who have experienced the ritual to reaffirm their commitments to life and living.

These are a few… There are several possible practices that we could point to as symbols of commitment to our communities.  The point is not to identify the symbols… the point is to appropriate the symbols.  Live in peace.  Live together.