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We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God

Posted on by Jeremy Daggett

This book by Kendall Vanderslice is a series of snapshots of different churches in the US and the way they center their times together around food and drink. It’s about eating and drink as worship. Of course I’m drawn to it since the way we gather as small faith and hope communities here in Arequipa is around the table. One of my favorite snapshots was Garden Church, where the liturgy includes working in the garden together before a time of worship and a meal:

“When we gather here at the Garden Church,” Anna says, “we remember that we gather because we believe that all should be fed in body, and mind, and spirit, and we want to cultivate a place that has those healing leaves. A place where more peace, and justice, and reconciliation, compassion, and hope can be cultivated together. When we gather around God’s table,” she says, “all are welcome to feed and to be fed.”

Vanderslice analyzes the entire enterprise of food:

At their core, these views recognize the interconnectedness of food, humanity, and all of creation. Fundamentally, these writers and thinkers long to see the deep brokenness of the world healed through our choices in food. They agree that food will be central to God’s complete restoration of creation. A robust theology of eating entails challenging the injustice in the growth, production, and distribution of food. But given the complexities of farming, cooking, and eating, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

Sometimes the mark of a good book is the list you’re left with of books to read next. This was definitely the case. From her notes, the following are now on my list:

Finally, on the opportunity white churches have to learn from Christian communities of color:

To laud the dinner-church model as something altogether new or as the ticket to fixing issues of diversity in the church only perpetuates the very ideas of white dominance that have pervaded the church, particularly the [US] American church, for generations. In reality, most of the pastors whom I have spoken with recognize that their own churches are modeled after their observations of the power of food in communities of color. The dinner-church model is increasing in popularity among white communities because it recognizes the importance of embodiment and food in a way that white communities have historically devalued. This trend, then, is a valuable opportunity for white Christians to recognize the need to learn from traditions outside of our own. It is a valuable space for white Christians to recognize a desperate need for the meal-centered practices that others have long used. It’s a way to recognize the power embedded in the process of eating together and the importance of Christ establishing his church around a meal. Even so, it is not the model that will inevitably heal the church’s racial wounds. But perhaps it is a start toward recognizing that in one bread, we are one body.