The Flow of Sundays

One of the things that people seem to have the hardest time with about our model, aside from the no building, not worshiping Sunday morning thing is how our Sunday dinner works. Folks are horrified that I am regularly cooking for 10-15 people. My reassurance that I just make pasta or soup and everyone else brings things doesn’t seem to work. “But how do you coordinate that, how do you make sure people are bringing the right things?” I laugh and tell them about the awesome dinner where we had four loaves of bread. People bring what they bring. I usually have extra bread in the freezer for communion, some lettuce in the fridge, and a dessert up my sleeve somewhere. If we had folks come with nothing I could throw together a meal, but that never happens. Last night I added salad because we had three wonderful fall pastas full of sausage and roasted veg and I wanted salad with them. We never leave the table hungry. Sure the combos we end up with aren’t on the menu of your favorite restaurant, but I think they reflect the body of Christ at it’s best.

The next question I get has to do with what we do at dinner. We begin with prayer and candle lighting. We’ve sung the same prayer since our early days. I made up little table tents so everyone would have the words. In the last few months we’ve been lighting the candles on the table as we sing, signaling Christ’s presence with us.

We begin serving each other and eating dinner while we have a brief time of check in. This is informal conversation about our week and often includes follow up on prior prayer requests such as a new job or a relative’s health.

Next we get to the heart of the matter. Some months we follow a pattern and other months we change things up as we feel so moved. For example this summer we talked about our questions of faith. At the beginning of the summer we had a brainstorming session at dinner and selected questions we wanted to discuss. Then each week I had a bible verse to prime the question and we started discussion there. During the year we normally have a theme for the month. I ask the group in the last week of the prior month for ideas and then we select a topic that informs our Taize worship and dinner each week. Often times during this portion our kids will go play or engage with a craft or project that I have set up for them. We have a young teen who keeps an eye on them while they are in the adjacent room with all the doors open. The kids come back and forth and are welcome to stay at the table.

Our usual pattern for the month is as follows: Week one we talk about our personal engagement with the topic. Perhaps the story of our baptism if we are focusing on sacraments or a time when we felt lost if we are focusing on people on the margins or who helped us to learn about our faith if we are talking about spiritual growth. Week two we do lecto divina with a scripture that matches the theme. We read it three times and listen for things that stand out to us. Week three we watch a video or react to an article or quote or thought as we engage the topic. Week four we talk about the ways our understanding or connection to the topic has changed and evolved over the month.

After about an hour of discussion we call the kiddos all back in to the room and share communion. We do a very brief liturgy and then have two people (usually a couple of the kids) go around the circle of the table serving each person.

Over dessert we ask how we can be present to each other in the coming week. This can be prayer requests or practical things like helping someone move or accompanying someone to the doctor or picking someone up at the airport.

Next we close our time together which I still have not found the perfect way to do. We’re experimenting with a closing prayer and then transitioning to a time of singing together in the living room. People clean the table as the musicians prep and then we sing a few songs. Afterwards people stay and chat until they need to leave.

I announce the theme of dinner every week on FB so people can prepare their thoughts so conversation flows more readily. Folks are welcome to bring readings or scriptures or other things that foster the discussion. One of our 10 year olds likes to bring us scriptures and we’ve had folks read from books or sing songs at the table as we draw on our lives to express our selves.

As we continue to experiment our Sunday evening flow will change, this is a snapshot of the way we function in this moment. It really is a beautiful thing.

-Eilidh