What Is That?

“What is that?” Is the question I keep getting asked about Snack Church.  A few members of the Sellwood Faith Community (SFC) felt that we needed another meal to make space for more intentional relationship building and spiritual formation, but this group wanted to extend that beyond the bounds of just SFC and make it a SE Portland Parish formation group. We thought this would best be done if we did it in a different SE neighborhood, and thus we landed in Woodstock at my house on 60th and Holgate.

In our visioning meetings we wanted something where people did not have to cook something to bring, which of course isn’t required for SFC but more often than not each person coming brings something to share. So we decided on snacks! Who doesn’t love snacks? And of course, we thought wine and tea would be great additions to whatever snacks people brought. Per Eilidh’s liturgical genius she recommended we begin this experiment during the season of Lent, a season dedicated to intentional spiritual formation in the Christian calendar.

And so one of the historic Wesleyan questions was left for our planning group, “What do we teach?” Chris Holle-Bailey had the beautiful idea of using sacred writings of the Christian tradition. This spiraled our group into thinking about different types of writing we each experience to be sacred, such as poetry, music, and the words of Carl Sagan. We also decided that we would approach the readings and structure our time based on the Lambeth Bible Study Method. This way of reading scripture was introduced to the Lambeth Conference by the African Delegation in 1998 which roots itself in the ancient tradition of Lectio Divina. In this practice, we go through a guided reflection of three questions on the sacred text where each person is invited to respond (and of course, “pass” is always an acceptable response).

While the cookies and wine have been consistently fantastic, it’s really the vulnerability of the group that has really touched my heart. Eilidh and I led the first two weeks and this past week we invited those gathered to sign up– and now all weeks are taken but one! The vision of these three adults has grown to a community of 13 not counting Eilidh, our childcare person, or me, and we’ve only had two meetings. This experience has reminded me of the beauty of small group for spiritual formation, a core value deeply embedded within our Wesleyan story. It is within these circles of strangers and acquaintances that we become friends and then family. In the midst of where the Methodist Church is right now, it’s groups like this that give me hope for what our church can reclaim as we move forward into uncharted waters as a denomination. It is in this space of love, acceptance, affirmation, and humility where the deep work of faith is done so that we can be people of mercy and justice in our city.

-Jayde