Why Family Dinners?

One of the greatest sources of joy and pain in the holiday season is family. These people who are the closest to you, parents, children, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, all have their own strengths and failings. I know part of what will play out this week will be memories and experiences of estrangement, of unspoken tensions, of wounds fresh and old, lived out in homes on Christmas day. Family can be hard. On the other hand, there will be reunions filled with laughter, quiet moments of comfort, meals shared where soul and body are fed alike. Family can be beautiful and good.

Church communities have their own stories of family too. Some people experience church as the coming together of strangers in common belief once a week, a family in name only. Other people have known what it is like to be adopted, to have mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who don’t share blood, but do share Spirit. The potential for joy or pain is there in churches too. With all that potential one way or another, it seems fraught to name anything “family” in a church. And yet… if you come to Kitsap House you have probably wandered here because of a longing for more. Deeper relationships. Deeper faith.

This is what Family Dinners are about. Family Dinners are a way to do small groups that encourages rich relationship with each other, God, and our neighbors. Those are the relationships Jesus taught us matter the most; his greatest commandments were to love God, love our neighbors, and love each other. When we lean into these most important relationships we get a taste of what it means when Scripture calls us “brothers and sisters” and “children of God.” We get a taste of family, in the best sense.

How Family Dinners do this is straightforward, really: listening. Family dinners are structured around listening practices, three simple questions that make space for each other, for God, and for our neighbors. If that sounds simple, I hope it is. But asking the right question can make all the difference.

I (Larry) asked a group of folks to help me figure out how to do this kind of structure earlier this Fall, a “pilot group” of sorts, and our experience was joyful and unhurried. There’s room to learn how to listen well, but even figuring out what this might look like was fun. I’m excited and curious about introducing more people to this kind of group.

So, beginning the first week of January we’ll be starting some groups, but please RSVP now. We need to keep these groups small (about 12 each), so we can fit in each other’s homes and so we can feel like we get to know each other. We are thinking through how to include families and kids as well, so don’t think this is just for adults. We hope at least some of these groups we can figure out how to do this intergenerationally. We are planning on doing these groups at no more than 8 weeks at a time, with at least a 4 week break in between. This hopefully prevents anyone from getting burnt out, while also letting people come and go without guilt.

At least to start, we’ll be using the Family Dinner format to explore practices from the Practicing the Way course. We’ll begin with the practice of generosity and continue with sabbath in the next round of Family Dinners. I’m hopeful that with the listening practices of Family Dinner, exploring the practices will be even more life-giving and grace-filled.

Finally, let me just say to those who might be wary about all this, I get it. “Family” and even “generosity” can be trigger words, reminding of some of the worst experiences of church community. If that’s you, I hope how we do this is healing and recaptures what is beautiful and good about the church. Nothing about this is meant to manipulate, force, or control anything. Everything about this is invitational. You’re invited.