The Scared Supper

For a few years now I've been increasingly convinced that the most important places for church are the kitchen table and the prayer room.I think I may be revising my opinion.I think it may be all about that kitchen table.For the last few months we've revived a springboard tradition and have been inviting friends to come and eat with us and observe the sabbath together. Either we eat early on a Saturday evening or late on a Sunday morning (I'm turning a blind eye to celebrating sabbath with Bacon sandwiches!). There are usually 10-20 of us and we hang out and talk about our week, eat some good food (nothing fancy) which one of us has cooked, play with the kids and...We REMEMBER - usually with communion, where we have seen Jesus this week. Sometimes for me that means acknowledging there were times when He was there and I chose to ignore Him. It's usually a thankful time but one which allows space for forgiveness too.We CELEBRATE making sure we come together in a grateful celebration of the week. All good things come from God. This week I read the passage from Nehemiah 8... i think. Where the Sabbath is explained as the walls of Jerusalem have been rebuilt. It's a time to put aside pain and sorrow and to celebrate. (we don't live in a sabbath moment, rather the pausing allows us to refocus and invite Jesus into the suffering of our little world.)We DEDICATE the week ahead. Prayer needs are shared and we spend time thinking about the week each of us has in front of them.All this is done in a very natural way, we don't interrupt the flow of conversation and laughter, rather we invite Jesus into all of our celebration. My hope is that it is also a place we are comfortable enough to invite the unchurched.A kitchen table is a place of prayer, a place of laughter and tears, it's a place of food being eaten in friendship and it's a place of worship. There's nothing wrong with plastic chairs in meeting halls or cuddling up on a soft sofa, right now I'm comfy in my battered old lounge chair, but for me... there's no more important place for church than a kitchen table.