November 21, 2024

What if church was a dinner party? What if a dinner party was church?

The concept of Dinner Church actually takes inspiration from the earliest church. When we read in Corinthians about the first Christians, we hear that they are meeting together in homes, eating dinner and remembering Jesus. These gatherings were scandalous because eating at the table was a segregated act. The rich and poor did not eat together. Jews and Gentiles did not eat together. The earliest church was radical in the way that people of opposing economic, social, and religious spectrums gathered together to eat. Women were leaders equal to the men. Slaves were leaders equal to the free. Just like Jesus often caused a ruckus in his choice of dinner companions, the early church followed suit. 

In her book Rediscovering Friendship, Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel describes the church as a “banquet of unusual friends.” What a description of the church that is both meaningful and easy to understand! The church is a dinner party of people from very different social realities called into friendship by the power of the Holy Spirit. We eat and drink; we give thanks; we share joy and grief and challenges; we look at each other’s faces rather than at the back of all the heads sitting in front of us. We interact as participants rather than assuming the role of spectator or audience. This friendship with folks who are different than us changes us and inspires us to change the world around us.

Dinner Church can be a formal worship service, but it also can be a way that we practice faith in our homes. When I read the book 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week by Tiffany Shlain, I was inspired by the way that the author describes her weekly family practice of taking a 24-hour technology sabbath. They begin this 24-hour period with a special dinner during which they invite guests to their home and have a “liturgy” of sorts that includes sharing by everyone at the table. It sounds to me like a form of dinner church, similar to the pattern of Jesus’ followers who gathered to eat together, remembering, celebrating, struggling, and becoming a beloved community.

How might our dinner tables become holy spaces as we put away our technology and become more intentionally present with each other and to the Holy Spirit in our midst? Through the holidays and as January rolls around, it is the perfect time to embody Jesus’ banquet of unusual friends in our homes. You may be surprised that friends and neighbors who decline your invitation to Sunday morning worship may say yes to your invitation to dinner. What happens there at the table is no less holy than what happens in a sanctuary.