WHO’S IN CHARGE?

Shared Meal Oversight is provided by several experienced supervisors: Call the church office at (503) 665-6471 with any questions. Thanks for helping to make our Shared Meal a wonderful time of serving one another in Christ’s love.

WHY DO WE HAVE A SHARED MEAL?

Our Sunday afternoon Shared Meal is an important time for getting to know one another other well enough to begin sharing our lives with one another during the week. Church leaders and established members need regular time together to maintain contact with one another. Visitors and new members need time to establish and deepen new relationships with others. The early churches described in the New Testament seem to have used a Shared Meal for these very purposes. It was a regular time of mutual hospitality that functioned as a weekly family reunion.  
In order to fulfill these same purposes today we must all do our part.

Our Shared Meal is an opportunity to honor God by serving one another in love! We begin serving one another by preparing our food well. We strive for excellence while still keeping things simple. We continue serving one another by agreeing to serve together as teams on the kitchen crew, to set up and clean up. We continue serving one another by enjoying one another’s company during and after our meal in age-integrated family-to-family, table-talk conversations. Finally, we serve one another by clearing the tables for one another after the meal. Our meal as a church can be a training ground for the way meals should be in our homes.

But just as our family meals can drift into selfish behaviors, so our Shared Meal as a church can drift (see 1 Cor 11:17-22!). If we are not diligent, it will lose its godly focus. We must continually pull it back on track and raise its standard high over and over again. Our goal each week must be to share a joyful and refreshing meal during which we truly get to know one another better in Christ.

Gregg Harris, 2003