Eating & Drinking

What is the importance of hospitality?

The history of the church is around the table. For hundreds of years, this is where the people of Jesus met. The gospel spread from one table to the next. From one home to another. All over a meal.

The table is a very ordinary place. So routine and everyday it is easily overlooked as a place of life changing community. By setting a table and sharing a meal, we provide the context for which people feel loved, where people feel heard; a place where God's spirit can move. The practice of eating and drinking is central to the Kingdom of God; Jesus ate with the lost, Jesus ate with community, Jesus ate with God.

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Practice

Follow along with each part of this practice. We recommend you work through it with your community, a small group triad, a weekly meal with friends or neighbors, your roommates, whatever works. Get a group of people, set a time each week to share a meal, then talk and pray for about an hour. Transformation happens in community. 

Eating & Drinking with the Lost

1

Radically Ordinary Hospitality 

The welcome of God to all through tangible acts of love, ideally through giving food, shelter, and relationship.

2

Neighboring

We usually generalize neighbor to mean anybody. Jesus said the word is so wide it encompasses our enemy.

3

Food as Justice

The entire Bible showcases God’s great concern for the poor and the hungry. This includes feeding the hungry.

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Eating & Drinking with Family 

4

Church Around a Table

Central to life in the kingdom of God is eating and drinking together with other apprentices of Jesus, as family.

5

Celebration

Jesus was the happiest person alive because God is the most joyful being in all of the universe.

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Eating & Drinking with God

6

Dining Room Table Christianity

We near the end of our Practice with the third dimension: eating and drinking with God. A meal around the table with Jesus and his community.

7

The Meal

The Lord’s supper, communion, the eucharist - whatever you call this meal, it is at the core of the way of Jesus.

8

The Altar and the Table

The Hebrew ideas of animal sacrifice and covenant meals help us understand God’s design and intention for communion.

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Recommended Reading

Follow along with the recommended reading. We want to continually expand our minds and understanding of the way of Jesus. God wants us to love him not only with our hearts, souls, and strength, but with our minds as well.