Beyond a Shared Dinner | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Beyond a Shared Dinner | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kelly Gellert
02/11/16
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Near the beginning of each new year, my church holds a Vision Dinner. This year our invites came with a packet of seeds attached along with a note telling us ‘instructions to follow’ and quoting John 12:24 (NIV), “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

I spent nearly two months looking forward to this dinner. It’s a pleasure to join together as a whole church, morning and evening congregations mingling, and these dinner settings are always spectacular. We also have a collection of great cooks in the church so anything involving food is usually a delight to the tastebuds. But I was also looking forward to this dinner because my church is undergoing several significant changes and there’s been talk over the last several months about God doing something new. This was the night the church staff would spread out before us the God-shaped vision that has been developing in their seeking.

The evening began with drinks and canapés on the lawn as people gathered at the end of another muggy day. Moving inside, three long rows of tables splendidly decorated invited us to share in a cosy candlelit dinner for the ninety people who could attend. Flaky, aromatic meat pies from the local bakery were served along with in-house salads and mashed potato. The perfect accompaniment to the company and conversation. After the simple enjoyment of sharing a meal together, the lead pastor opened with the overall vision stretching across this year and beyond. Other staff members shared what this vision would look like in specific areas. It was laid out before us, a feast greater than expected, and we were invited to begin to taste, savour and digest. A delectable sweetness rounded out the evening and our bellies. We shared homemade, sugary pavlovas, crisp on the outside and spongey on the inside, classically topped with cream and fruit and a final bout of communing before clean up began and our homes beckoned us.

The following week I planted the peppermint seeds I’d received with the invite in the pot of dirt provided for each of us at the dinner. We were encouraged to use the task of watering our seeds as an opportunity to pray for the church,for all that God wants to do in us and through us. Yet more than that, in three months’ time, we are invited to bring the plants we will have nurtured from seeds to the opening of the herb garden in which they will be planted. It will be shared with the local community and they will be invited to participate in tending it and to share in the produce. This idea illuminates my imagination with delicious, rich fragrances wafting amongst the community, adding fullness to more than just the dishes being consumed. It is a picture of the goodness of a God who delights in flavouring and enhancing and sharing in all of life’s meals with all people.

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