On Sunday February 24th and March 3rd, members of the Leadership Team and staff are hosting community dinners. Everyone is invited to attend. Our prayer for the evening is people will simply enjoy being together and spend some time talking about where they see and experience Jesus at work in our church and where the Lord might be calling our community to move going forward. In short, we want to lean into being a community and talk about how we want to continue to do that faithfully in the future.
A few weeks ago, I was brainstorming a future “Theology of the Ordinary” class and almost half joking started fleshing out a “theology of food.” Well, that joke quickly filled up a piece of paper with example after example of scriptures engagement with food:
- Abraham and Sarah offer a meal to three strangers and that leads to them hearing God was promising them a child
- The Israelites are discipled primarily by the receiving of manna in the wilderness as they head from Egypt to the Promised Land
- Jesus says one of the few questions you will be asked on the other side of death is “Who did you feed?” and teaches us that one of the few specific prayers we need to lift up is a petition for our daily bread
- The Easter miracle only becoming a reality for many when it was encountered over a meal
- Finally, the early Church’s primary growth strategy was to be intentional about eating dinner together
And after seeing that list, it all led me to realize when it comes to faith, food is clearly no joke!
I am not saying a meal with others gathered around the Lord will always feel important or produce miraculous results, but I am saying the most important and miraculous things that ever happened on this Earth have been experienced by people willing to gather around God over a meal. So while I am not sure what fruit will come from our time together, I do believe the Spirit will be present, and I would love for as many people from our church body as possible to be able join us in taking that Good News seriously.
With that said, (we believe) all church members have been reached out to about attending a meal. It would be a huge help if you could RSVP to your host soon. If you would like to attend one of these dinners or would be interested in attending the alternative date, please reach out to me (drew@kairosatlanta.org), and I will get you connected to one of the dinners. There is room for everyone who would like to participate.
Grace and peace,
Drew