The Family Biz...
Oct 29, 2020.We live in a day when there are so many Christian groups doing so many Christian things that it's hard to discern Christianity's MAIN THING. Is it worship? Is it teaching the scriptures? Is it providing a place for believers to meet and grow? Is it to build beautiful campuses that impresses the townspeople? Actually, the life of Jesus cut right through all the religious noise of his day - right from the beginning.#JesusStories: Luke 2 captures a wonderful moment when the boy Jesus demonstrated unusual clarity of eternal things. His parents were returning home after making their annual trip to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. Mary thought the 12 year-old Jesus was riding in the caravan with dad, Joseph thought he was traveling with mom, when actually they had left their boy behind. So in a nervous frenzy they returned to Jerusalem to find Jesus in the Temple discussing mature topics with the temple teachers - who were very impressed by-the-way. When Mary saw him, her pent-up anxiety spilled all over the boy - as any mother would do. Jesus' response was very unexpected: "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" Verse 50 records that they were baffled and did not understand what he was talking about.I'm afraid many church leaders today are similarly mystified; they just don't understand how invested Jesus still is - in The Father's Business. And recent translations of scripture don't help. They have replaced the word 'business' with the word 'house' in this story. I know that every house in that culture had a family business and the terms house and business could be interchangeable. But imagining God's world as a household rather than a family business has not served us well. In recent decades convenience and comfort have become the assumption of the Church, whereas intercession and sacrifice was the assumption in ages past. We have really needed the reminder that every church is supposed to be engaged in the Family Business. And according to Jesus' parable about leaving the 99 behind to go save the one lost lamb, it's clear that the God Family is in the 'rescue business'. May the 12 year-old Jesus steer all of us back into the FAMILY BIZ.#DinnerChurchQuotes: "The disciples inability to comprehend the significance of Jesus’ meal strategy is symbolic of their failure to understand his entire mission." -L.E. Klosinski#PracticalStuff: A buffet table loaded with food is the best metaphor of the gospel we can use today; there was a reason why Jesus spent so much time around food with lost people. Do you need some help getting started with meal prep? The Dinner Church Handbook (available on this website) has 13 menu's in the back that are impressive, inexpensive, big-group-able, and can be prepared by a hack cook in a lousy kitchen.Blessings & Boldness,Verlon
Let It Flow!
Oct 22, 2020.Public speaking is a fearful thing for many people. In truth, many ministers are not as comfortable with it as they appear. This becomes especially true when we are called to break away from prepared teachings and speak extemporaneously. And yet, there are times when the gospel will ask that very thing from us.#JesusStories: In Mark 13, Jesus revealed a time when such great turmoil and persecution would come upon Christians that leaders would find themselves having to defend the Church before courts and governmental leaders. Of course, this happened initially in the book of Acts and later some forty years after the death and resurrection of Christ with the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem. However, some of the words of Jesus in this chapter seem to point to a future event - perhaps what is unfolding in our lifetime. Wars, famines, earthquakes, families turning against each other, and hatred of the Christ-followers are among Jesus' descriptions of a time to come. These things are occurring with greater regularity now than they did in A.D. 70, to be sure. But true to divine form, Jesus made it clear that these seasons of turmoil were also times for the inbreaking Kingdom to advance largely. In verses 9-10 he stated, "But this will be your opportunity to tell them about me. For the Good News must first be preached to all nations." This is a huge insight into the God Family; they charge forward at the exact moment earthly enemies of the Church look invincible. And they direct us, the representatives of Jesus upon the earth, to be the sharp point of the spear by standing up with authoritative speaking and empowered preaching during these seasons. But, this kind of speaking is different than our training - it is more about the 'unction of the Spirit' and less about the 'preparation of the pastor'. Some preachers during the Great Awakening used to talk about their sermons like this, "Read yourself full, pray yourself hot, and let yourself blow." That always makes me laugh, but it was their way of 'flowing with the Spirit'. And there must be something important here, because Jesus Himself said in verse 11, "Don't worry in advance about what to say, Just say what God tells you at that time, for it is not you who will be speaking, but the Holy Spirit." Wow! We all could probably grow in our ability to 'let it flow'. After all, when we speak - we are supposed to be speaking for God. And all the more as we see the day approaching.#DinnerChurchQuotes: Every faith community we have opened includes some form of a table. -Ray O' Leary (Pastor of a church in Dallas TX with 7 monastic gatherings)#PracticalStuff: In these days of Covid when most Dinner Churches are meeting outside on the sidewalks, there is a potent silver lining - the public gets to see the Church doing church. While it was more comfortable to be indoors, we were also less visible. Setting up canopy tents side-by-side: with buffet tables filled with great food in hot chaffing dishes in one, worship musicians and pastors doing their work from another, and guests gathered and eating in yet other pop-ups. With winter weather approaching, these tents not only shields the rain, but they are cheap, quick to set up, and provide a great picture of Jesus' Church for all passer-by's. Oh the power of a canopy tent!Blessings & Boldness,Verlon
Jesus' Family
Oct 15, 2020.Sometimes we get confused about what it means to be in the family of God. We come by this confusion naturally; it is an understandable occurrence in this 'age of reason' in which we live. Thankfully, our Lord clarifies it for us:#JesusStories: Luke 8 tells of a day Jesus was speaking to the crowd, and his mother and brothers came to check on him. However, they couldn't get to Jesus because the crowd was pressing in on him. So they sent word to Jesus that they were in the crowd and wanted to see him. What Jesus did next was surprising; he used the opportunity to make a HUGE point. He said, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it." After making his point, I'm sure Jesus made his way toward his family, though Luke did not include it.This was early on in Jesus' ministry, and already he was calling for people to rearrange their schedules around his words. Many today would think this reveals Jesus' authority to expect obedience. However, there was something else going on. In the world of the Hebrews, there was no separation between a thought and a deed. In other words, no one would talk of a thought until the corresponding deed was visible. This idea still stands today in the right-of-passage tradition for a 12-year old Jewish male called the Bar Mitzvah. Interestingly, the word mitzvah means 'a prayer in the form of a deed'. In our Greek-based culture, this is an odd idea. Either someone is praying or they are doing a deed; prayers and deeds are separate ideas. But in the Hebrew understanding they are fused as two sides of the same coin. So when Jesus was telling the people to "act on it", he was was punctuating that the new inbreaking kingdom teaching was SO TRUE, that he and his disciple-family would align their behaviors to whatever was needed to advance it. In other words, they were putting their money and their time where their mouth was. And these ones repeating the kingdom--advancing behaviors were the ones Jesus called family. Wow!This is a significant challenge today. True to our Greek roots we have carved out a state of salvation that has little corresponding actions. Now don't get me wrong, I fully believe that anyone who even calls on the name of the Lord will be saved! And those individuals are immediately adopted into the family of God. So this is not a conversation about who will be in heaven; it is a conversation about who will be able to work with Jesus in bringing the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. Receiving salvation does not require works, but advancing the kingdom of Christ does. Most Christians today are being directed to be 'students of the scriptures' rather than 're-enact the works of Jesus'. Eleven percent of the gospel verses were written while Jesus was with the marginalized; eight percent of the verses captured Jesus doing healings and miracles. Is your time in the word of God leading you to be with the poor? To pray for healings and miracles? To re-enact the behaviors of Jesus we see repeated over and over again in the gospels? I propose that we need a new definition of Christlikeness - one based on what Jesus did with his time, rather than one based on the scriptures we've studied and verses we've memorized. But to the ones working hard to advance the kingdom of heaven in the likeness of Jesus, He was quick to call them family.#DinnerChurchQuotes: "Sorry, we are not going to fix the world with speeches from platforms; we must embrace the relational work of gathering around tables." -Dan white Blessings & Boldness,Verlon
Knock Over Some Tables
Oct 8, 2020.Present-day Christian sensibilities suggest that we should be calm, serene, peaceful and measured leaders at all times. Interesting. Especially against the backdrop that Jesus did not always act that way.#JesusStories: John 2 and Matthew 21 both record Jesus knocking over the moneychangers tables on the front porch of the temple in Jerusalem. These recordings were not different witnesses of the same event - they were two different occurrences altogether. John's version happened right after the wedding in Cana at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, while Matthews story happened right after the Triumphal Entry when Jesus came riding into the city on a colt. In John's account, the disciples remembered the prophecy that passion for God's house would consume the Messiah (Ps. 69:9). The fact that Jesus did this twice makes it very clear that he did not approve of the scam in which the priests declared the peoples sacrificial doves as unclean, and then forcing them to go back out to the vendors on the front porch to buy a "clean" sacrifice at an exorbitant price - after which the sellers and the priests split the profit.Jesus' table-tipping and whip-making behaviors seem brutish to us at first glance, but it was actually a defense of the poor. Many having traveled to Jerusalem for the annual sacrifice had little money left after their journey to afford the approved and up-priced turtledoves. It forced them to use their needed food and travel money to be able to make a sacrifice before the Lord for the sake of their family. And all of this to line the pockets of the priests. Jesus simply could not let this stand. This is not the last time that religious systems would clutter the path of salvation - it happens today too. Denominational formation that begins with well-meaning organizational structures often devolve into cluttering the path between sinner and Savior. Everything from closed communion to confession-heavy 'sinners prayers' to legalistic teaching to the way some unpack 'penal-substitution' can be guilty of this. We need to ponder the path we are creating for lost people in our towns to walk toward Christ. In this day, it is easier to forge man-made requirements for salvation than we can imagine - requirements that Jesus Himself would not ask. There is a reason why only one percent of US churches are effective at leading the secular population to Jesus - we have cluttered the path with our doctrines, our dogma's, and our teachings that sound good to us Judeo's, but that our Lord would not impose on the New Gentiles who live in our neighborhoods. When we see these encroachments on the path of Salvation, someone needs to hear the prophetic call: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord; make straight a highway for our God" (Is. 40:3). Pushing hurdles out of the way of sinners with great passion is a significant part of what it means to be Christlike. And it is an ongoing need in this waning chapter of The Day of Salvation. I believe we need an army of Christian Leaders who are so passionate about evangelism that they are willing to knock over some of the tables of our church traditions to make a way for the lost, the least, and the left-behind.#DinnerChurchQuotes: The attention given in the Gospels to meals is an embodiment of Jesus' acceptance of outcasts. The visual art about Jesus from the pre-Constantinian period reveal that two of the most crucial elements of that way of life were 'shared meals' and 'healed lives'. -Julian HillsMay the Lord Bless your Bold Leadership,Verlon
Called To The Impossible
Oct 1, 2020.It is human nature to desire a comfortable path for our lives and ministries. And sometimes we find seasons when the challenges are few and the budget always balances. But there is a reoccurring theme in the life of Christ that calls to us - that bids us to advance the kingdom of God at all costs and against all odds.#JesusStories: Matt. 19 records a young man coming to Jesus and asking what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus directed him to consider his adherence to the core commandments, to which the man replied he lived up to them all. Then Jesus said, "go sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, and come follow me." To that offer, the man walked away sad because he was very rich. Jesus then turned to his disciples and told them how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples were astonished and asked who in the world could be saved? Jesus looked at them intently and said, "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible."This first thing I notice in this story is that the young man was seeking eternal life, when Jesus was inviting him to help usher forth the inbreaking kingdom of God. The disciples weren't much better - they were wondering who could be saved when Jesus was looking to an advancing mission. This is undoubtedly why Jesus "looked at them intently" - to corral their attention to his deeper call. This is still a problem today; many are seeking for salvation when Jesus is seeking to give them a vital role in ushering the kingdom of light into darkened hearts. But to take on such a role requires us to lay down our shallow spiritual desires and open up our lives to be spent on something big. However, taking on a vital role to advance the inbreaking kingdom of light against the uprising kingdom of darkness is not something mere humans can do. Jesus called these engagements impossible. This work can only done by divine strength. In other words, we must learn to become dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord that has already taken up residency inside of us. This is the reason Jesus asked the young man to let go of his dependency upon a bank account; that young man needed to learn dependency upon the Lord if he were to arise and do the impossible alongside Jesus. In wealthy America, we need to embrace a deeper version of dependency too. By the Spirit flowing out from within us we replicate the works of Christ (Eph. 2:10). And by that same Spirit we destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8). In these ways we advance the inbreaking Kingdom of God against the uprising kingdom of darkness. If we are going to follow Jesus - get ready to do the impossible. Oh by-the-way, a great place to watch this happen and help this happen is at a Dinner Church. Look no further than a Jesus table to start extending the borders of the Kingdom.#DinnerChurchQuotes: The enemies purpose is to distract us to a lower level of living until we die. -Michael SlaughterBlessings and Boldness,Verlon
Motivated By Mercy
Sept 24, 2020.It's oft times difficult to understand the attitudes and behaviors of people who walk a different road than we do. And walking a mile in someone else's shoes is a very difficult axiom to actually practice. This story helps...#JesusStories: In Matt. 18 Jesus tells a parable of a king who confronted a man from his realm who owed him 300 million dollars (in todays value). The man fell to his knees and begged for more time to pay the debt. The king felt for the mans situation and rather than placing him in debtors prison, let him go free. Upon leaving the kings court the man found someone who owed him a few thousand dollars and demanded immediate repayment. That debtor fell to his knees and begged for more time, but that request was not accepted and he was thrown into debtors prison. This is the human condition; we all need great mercy and yet we struggle to offer small mercy to others. This is especially true when those around us needing our mercy are too different from us. Back to Jesus parable, I would suggest that any man owing millions is likely an upperclass businessman, while any man owing small amounts is probably a wage earner. They were from different worlds. Before we distance ourselves from this story, a moment of honesty is needed here. How often have you seen someone holding a sign on a corner and whispered to yourself, "Wouldn't it be easier if you just got a job?" Or when hearing of someone shoplifting, did you feel a slight disgust? It is hard at those moments to understand the conditions that motivate desperate and resourceless people. Even Solomon prayed that he never be so poor that he would be tempted to steal. (Prov. 30:9). We need some divine help if we are going to hold this issue rightly.The Eastern Church has something to teach us on this front; one of their oldest congregational prayers is the Kyrie Eleison which means "Lord have Mercy." Something quite profound occurs when we learn to lean into the deep mercy of Christ on a consistent basis. Though some Reformation-Era theologies have obscured this truth, it can be recovered through practicing the 'Merciful Christ' prayer. As Jesus parable suggests, his mercy for us is 300M immeasurable; the more we live in the assumption of immense mercy, the more we become practiced in offering it to others. My father-in-law used to practice mercy with this saying, "be kind to people; everyone is fighting a battle." In Christ's immeasurable mercy we find our strength, and with that same mercy we strengthen others.#DinnerChurchQuotes: "The first command of God in the garden is 'eat freely’; the last command in Revelation is ‘drink freely’; everything in between is a table where we eat with God and each other." -Leonard SweetBlessings & Boldness, Verlon
Regaining Our Missional Traction
Sept 17, 2020.We often assume that gospel stories are the entry level materials of faith - often reserved for children and first believers. This would be wrong. I propose that the greatest instruction for church leaders are held in Jesus' words. We might want to look at them again through leadership eyes.#JesusStories: Luke 4 records a day when Jesus walked into a synagogue and asked if they would permit him to do the reading that day from the prophet Isaiah. While all eyes were upon him, he read this prophecy, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty all who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Then after a long pause while everyones eyes were fixed upon him, he said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Wow, I would have love to have been there. This was no normal day at synagogue. It was the formal announcement of something new happening on earth - what Paul called 'The Day of Salvation'. Jesus made it clear in that moment what the world should expect from him going forward. Isaiah's forecasted list would now become the repeating 'Works' that Jesus would use to birth the inbreaking Kingdom of God upon the earth. I am taken this morning with the line "preach the good news to the poor." Most preaching today in America is done to the middle and upperclass people who have been listening to scriptural teaching every week for decades. The lower-third of our population is seldom included. Sad but true. Preaching has become an art-form for the 'already gathered' to the exclusion of the 'not yets'. But Isaiah predicted, and Jesus affirmed that preaching to the 'not-yets' and the isolated would be a cornerstone of his regular activity. When John's disciples were sent to ask Jesus if he was really the Messiah, he sent them back to report that the poor are being preached to; that was the only evidence John would need. This is potent information for Christian leaders today. An unexplainable anointing begins to flow upon any ministry and church that finds a way, any way, to preach the good news to the poor and the 'not yets' - it changes everything in that church. Here is the truth of it: We too can walk in a new anointing, preach powerfully to the poor, heal those who are broken in all kinds of ways, rescue our neighbors from the strongman's oppressions, and to make the announcement that there is no time like the present to receive Jesus' strength in your life. I honestly wonder if recommitting to these 'Works of Christ' is the fastest way for any leader, any ministry, or any church to regain their traction?#DinnerChurchQuotes: "To oppose the gospel of Jesus is like hitting jello with a sledge hammer - it splatters all over the walls in four directions." -The Anonymous Theologian. (Note: Dinner Churches thrive in the splattering gospel - especially after evil has done its worst to suppress, repress, and oppress)Blessings upon your work for the frontlines of the Gospel,Verlon.
An Inner Voice
Sept 10, 2020
#JesusStories: In Matt. 7, Jesus told a story about a person who built their house on sand, and in the day of storm that house came down with a "great crash". He went on to say that anyone who builds their life upon human ideas & perspectives is building on sand. Conversely, anyone who builds their life upon Christ’s words and perspectives would be building upon rock.
This is a foundational gospel story, because it leads us to consider where we draw our knowledge from. The academic word for this is “epistemology”. Everyone is born with two streams of information flowing into them: their experiences & others experiences. But, when we invite Jesus to live in us, a third epistemology is born - the voice of Christ. It is a good thing to ask ourselves the question, “How much time am I downloading information each day from other people’s perspectives? And how much am I downloading the voice of Christ/Wisdom/Peace/Strength/Good Works?” Feasting on everyone else’s words & starving ourselves from Christ’s words sets up a crumbling & crashing future. May Jesus’ words become LOUD in you today!
#DinnerChurchQuotes: "I want the holiness of the Eucharist to spill out beyond the church walls and onto the streets, sidewalks, backyards, dining rooms, tables, and into the hands of grubby people like you and me." -Shauna Niequist
-Verlon
The Unwanted Step-Child of Missiology
Missiology is the equal blend of theology and sociology. However, most church leaders went to seminary to become theologians not sociologists. So it is not unreasonable that most would prefer to focus on theology to the exclusion of sociology. However, this oversight has caused us to drift toward the ditch of being so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. Now don’t get me wrong, we are of great good to Christians, but because of sociological inattention we are almost invisible to the unchurched. One only needs to look at the eighty-five percent of churches that are stalled and declining, and the 96 church closures each week to see that we are ineffective in reaching new and unchurched populations at our gatherings. The church in America does not have a theological problem, but we do have a sociological problem. And as long as we continue to understand our declines through theological lenses, we will continue to misdiagnose our situation, and will continue to consider solutions like “more prayer”, “more moving of the Spirit”, and “better worship.” While these things are all wonderful and I believe in and practice them all, they are not the reason for our declines.Jesus told an interesting parable that I find is misunderstood all across the land – the parable of the wineskins. In Jesus story he made it clear that new wine cannot be put in old wine bottles, because when the wine expands it will break the skins and spill the wine. While most understand the principle, we need to meditate on what the wineskins represents. The pressure that forced Jesus to tell this story was that he was doing things with his disciples that ignored the inflated rules of Judaism. When the Pharisees confronted him on it, he explained that a new wine was coming, and that new wine would need to be housed in a different structure than the 613 rules and ways of Judaism. Jesus’ point? When new wine pours out of heaven, a different sociological structure would be needed to house that new wine. Thus, Jesus was developing a new wineskin (way of functioning) to handle the new wine (the inbreaking Kingdom). Wow.In this day, the Lord is pouring out many new wines upon the church. However, if we insist that all of that wine be forced into our religious organizational patterns and our worship gathering approaches, it is likely that those sociological structures will burst and the new wine will spill. I wonder how much new wine has been spilled in church board rooms where defenders of the status quo have insisted that a new proposed church-plant be merged into their present ways of doing church? Until leaders are willing to create new sociological structure for new missional ideas, they will continue to miss the point of Jesus’ new wine and new wineskins parable.Fresh Expressions is based on the missiological theory of ReMissioning. Simply stated, ReMissioning means doing church for people who don’t do church, and in a way that fits their sociology, and not any traditional sociologies. The Gospel is the same, but everything else might be very different. The way your church is doing church is the result of years and layers of sociological adaptations. In other words, you liked your way into the way you do church now. It is far less theological than you think, and far more sociological than you’ve probably considered.The missiological discipline of ReMissioning forces us to build new wineskins for any new wine that is being poured out for a new people. And these new wineskins are different sociological constructs that fits an unreached people. In fact, if churched people like a new church plant vision, it might be the greatest indicator that it is destined for failure because it is based on churched sociologies rather than new wineskins. Just because we felt Jesus in sacred spaces on Sunday mornings while the organ was playing doesn’t mean the unchurched will feel Jesus that way. In fact, if they did feel Jesus that way, they would have probably already have joined our Sunday morning gatherings. But they haven’t. That should say something to us; it should say they need a form of church that allows them to feel the divine invite of Christ in a way that is true to their sociology. If there is no organ, is it still church? If there is no 30-minute sermon, is it still church? And if there is no sanctuary or formal communion, is it still church? The answer might surprise you. If the gospel is being shared, if people are being pointed to Christ, and if they are being shaped in the likeness of Christ, then yes, Yes, and YES…it is a church, irregardless of its format. Welcome to the world of ReMissioning. And may the Spirit give us new sociologies of church to house new wine for new people.-Verlon
Hosting a dinner for your community against the backdrop of Christian history
For many homes, dinnertime has been revisioned as TV time. Somehow, we have lost the power of the dinner table to shape society. Even the church has lost how powerful a dinner table can be, especially when it comes to reaching unchurched people. With the majority of churches and Christians lagging in confidence when it comes to sharing their faith, perhaps now is the time to remember the power of a Jesus table. If you are proposing having your church do a community dinner soon, you are proposing a great thing. Below are a few tips for hosting a Jesus table.
Embracing the Dinner Table History
Jesus spent a lot of His time around tables. In fact, J. Crossan suggests that to watch a day in the life of Jesus would be to watch him mostly healing and eating. Other scholars, like Christine Pohl agree, and points out that Jesus’ supper times were a consistent and prominent part of His mission. That is a powerful insight. It doesn’t take long to see in the Gospels how many times Jesus reclined at dinner tables with scurrilous people, so much so that in Luke 7:34 he garnered the reputation of being a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of sinners. But this was part of our Lord’s divine strategy to download the kingdom of God onto the earth and into the hearts of the irreligious. Christine Pohl goes on to say that these dinners were intended by Jesus to be an invitation to faith. In this way Jesus embedded the gospel into the dinner table sociology. This is the spiritual reason the church grew from hundreds to millions while it was using the dinner table theology. This is our history and our heritage. So, any group that is preparing a dinner table in the likeness of Christ is actually preparing a colorful vision of the Gospel.
Hosting tip #1: Serve the food in a way that reveals the abundance and generosity of the gospel; and expect people to be drawn to Christ.
Invite the Unlikely
The warmth of Christ in our hearts gives us a wonderful sense of fellowship. So warm is that feeling that some never wants to leave their Christian friends to reach the unchurched. It is a very good thing that the people who invited you and me into the God-Family did not think that way. Every church must be reminded from time to time to include people who have little to offer back. This is actually supposed to be at the heart of Christian food events. In Luke 14:12-14 Jesus instructed the hearers not to invite people for a banquet who can return the favor, but instead invite those who cannot pay you back. We see such an important interchange in Luke 19:5 where Jesus saw Zacchaeus up in a tree and invited himself over for dinner. There are a couple key things to note from this story: First, not all isolated people are poor; and Second, as they ate together Zacchaeus opened up his heart and changed his life. This is the power of a table when Jesus is sitting at it; that is also the power of a table when Jesus’ people are sitting at it.
Hosting tip #2: Invite some people to your dinner who are not likely to be invited to other tables; and eat with them rather than serving them.
When Jesus Shows Up
Jesus loved the dinner table. This is something the Early Church understood that we have not. In fact, the Early Church held that Jesus might even show up in a physical form during their dinners, like he did to the guys on the road to Emmaus and the disciples behind locked doors in an upper chamber. Those events and more created a sense among the Early Church that He might just do it again. Some of those Agape Feast events went so far as to set an empty chair for Him. That anticipation lasted clear until long after the Constantinian turn. And in fact, I propose that is what drove the formation of the doctrine of transubstantiation.The American church needs to recover the idea that Christ will actually show up if we set up a Jesus table. Many Christ followers give learned assent to the theology of Omnipresence, but do not grasp the promise of an increased presence at a Jesus table. What will actually happen in any room, which is being hosted by Christ followers, is on a far higher level than food and fellowship – it is a divine invite to come and have dinner with Jesus. Let us stop and consider how compelling of an offer that is. To have dinner with Jesus is to have dinner with the Healer, the Comforter, the Savior, and the Provider. In short, a Jesus table is a portal between the house of God and the house of man. And that is no small opportunity.
Hosting tip #3: Expect Jesus to show up and do some unexplainable things for your guests; He would not miss it for the world.
Conclusion
A Jesus dinner table is a powerful thing. Not only is it the ultimate image of inclusion in God’s generous family, but it is also an invitation to restart our lives while eating with Christ and Christ’s people. Properly understood, we can change the world with a dinner table.Revelation 3:20 reveals a picture of Jesus knocking on the door of peoples lives, and whoever opens that door will find that our Lord still wants to simply have dinner with them. That is heartbeat of a Jesus table; that is the divine spark that will be present in your banquet room. Have your group set an abundant table; invite the unlikely, sit to eat with them, and Jesus will show up. After all, your dinner is actually His dinner.
Jesus’ Dinner Table
We live in a day that holds deep assumptions about the way church is done. We assume exclusive religious spaces, teaching-centric gatherings, congregational liturgies, and musical worship experiences. The reformers gave us these ideas of church five hundred years ago, and we have become serious disciples of their ways. Interestingly, this approach is not found in the scriptures, nor is it how church was done for the first three hundred years of Christianity.
An Overlooked Piece of Christian History
The apostolic era practiced church primarily around dinner tables. Whether it was the house churches introduced in the Book of Acts, or the Agape’ churches introduced in the Epistles, they were both done around tables of food at dinnertime. The dinner table setting of the first Christians is usually overlooked in today’s theological discussions, but its implications are very deep and worthy of serious reflection.Jesus himself used the dinner table and dinnertime throughout his ministry. J. Crossen states that if one were to watch a day in the life of Jesus, they would mostly see him healing and eating. Jesus performed much of his salvific work from a dinner table; many of the parables were told from a dinner table; numerous kingdom metaphors assumed a dinner table. It is not a mystery then why the Acts house churches and the Gentile Agape’ churches functioned around dinner tables; they were given that pattern by Jesus himself.During the Last Supper, Jesus took an annual dinner event and turned it into a vision for doing church by telling his disciples to now start doing this “whenever” they met, to continue to gather the poor and the stranger to their table, and “remember him” instead of remembering the rescue event from Egypt. In so doing, Jesus embedded the gospel into the dinner table sociology, and his disciples obviously caught that vision. The gospel found a comfortable home at the dinner table and at dinnertimes. The familial setting of the dinnertime table made it easy to gather people to the family of God. During the three hundred years when Christian gatherings were Dinner Churches, the church grew from 20,000 to over 20 million. In other words, many sinners met their Savior over tables of food.
Our Sociological Problem
There is something winsome about inviting people to dinner that cannot be paralleled by inviting people to a teaching event. Leaders of the reformation era that we inhabit, truly needs to meditate upon what we are actually asking the unchurched population to come to? Then follow up that meditation with another – would inviting their neighbors to dinner be more compelling? In fact, take a moment right now and imagine you are inviting one of your secular neighbors to come to a worship gathering with you. Now imagine you are inviting that same neighbor to come over for dinner with your family. Which invite do you think they would garner the most likely “yes”? For people who have an understanding of church in their background, or people who have a primed interest in Christianity, the proclamation-event would be considered. But for people with no church sociology in their background and have low interest in the Christian message, a proclamation event holds little appeal. With this in mind, I propose that the American church has a sociological problem. There is nothing wrong with our gospel, but our way of doing church does not match the sociological realities of the seculars who now dominate the almost every zip code across our nation. And yet, the church is called to lead seculars to Jesus. We cannot just focus on the Judeo’s (those who already understand church sociology), we must do church for the Seculars too.Jesus told an interesting parable about what to do with “new wine”. He stated that new wine required “new wineskins”, because to put new wine in old wineskins would burst the skins and spill the wine. I see this parable being lived out across the land. New outreach ideas are filled with an assumption that the new people will soon be brought to their Sunday morning worship gatherings. And when they refuse to come, the church is disappointed and stops the outreach. In other words, the wineskin is broken and the new wine is spilled. Church after church is trying to create new wine, but are unquestionably trying to put it in the same bottle they are used to, rather than a new sociological construct (a new form of church) that better fits the sociology of the new people. Some churches have even gotten into an endless loop of looking for an effective outreach that will merge well with their Sunday proclamation-event. And they have never stopped to consider that their proclamation-event is what needs to be changed, rather than looking for the more effective outreach. The sociological construct that the reformers gave us has been great for many of us, but it simply does not match the sociological realities of those we are called to reach that populate our cities.Dinner With Sinners:There is a very interesting verse in Revelation 3:20 that reveals an ongoing desire of our Lord for us to consider:“Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice andopens the door, I will come in to him and DINE with him, and he with Me.”If these poetic words mean anything, it suggests that Jesus still wants to have dinner with sinners. It is clear in the New Testament that Jesus loved having sinners, publicans, tax-collectors, and the like at his table. In fact, that habit brought more than a little controversy from the religious class. But he wasn’t dissuaded; he continued to be “a friend of sinners”(Luke 7:34) and welcome them at his table. And interestingly, he still wants to have dinner with sinners. The only question remaining is, “who is going to set his table?” Could it be, that setting a table for sinners, seculars, and strangers to have dinner with Jesus might be one of the great callings of the church? What if when Jesus was telling Peter to “feed his sheep”, he wasn’t speaking metaphorically, but was actually directing him to a physical table?All of these questions, verses, and more is what informs the Dinner Church movement. And true to the reformation era, groups that decide work with Jesus at one of his dinner tables find their rooms filling up with strangers, sinners, the poor and the new Gentiles (Seculars). Let me say it one more time: Jesus still wants to have dinner with sinners.