Dear Small Church Pastor,
Let’s talk about the idea of eating together for a bit. There is a common bond that is created between people when they eat together. They don’t just eat. They share recipes. They talk about family history. They relate important events from their lives. They communicate with each other, and communication is one of the keys to creating a cohesive, unified, strong relationship with others.
While serving as the leader for student government summer camps, I discovered the power of having a meal together. Our camps, which were designed to foster leadership skills in rising young student leaders, were divided into beginning sections for those who had just become elected to their student councils and those who had a year or more of leadership responsibilities in their respective schools. I noticed that the advanced students who were grouped together for a special meal outside the normal eating schedule would demonstrate more of a unified spirit than those who did not attend those special meals. In essence, they were building closer relationships to each other than the beginning groups.
How does this knowledge play into your situation as a small church pastor? To help foster that same type of cohesion in your congregation, one way of doing that is to eat together. There are plenty of times in the Bible in which people ate together. Sometimes the meals were designed as special festivals. Sometimes they were everyday events. But, regardless of the occasion, people shared histories, rationales for the meals existing, everyday life joys and sorrows, and the whole gamut of life’s happenings.
They were communicating. They were learning from each other. They were helping each other deal with life. They weren’t simply putting food into their mouths. They were becoming a group, a family, a whole unit that was sharing, not just food to exist, but their common existence, dreams, fears and hopes for the future.
Eating together can be one of the greatest blessings of being a small church pastor. The meals don’t have to occur every time you turn around. They can be scheduled or impromptu. They can be formal or informal. Small church congregations will enjoy them, because they don’t just enjoy eating. They enjoy being together with people of “like precious faith.”
Allow me to suggest that, in addition to getting the whole congregation together for a meal, you eat with the individual families outside the church setting. Invite them to your home. Find out what they enjoy and prepare that meal for them. Accept their invitations to eat with them in their homes. Share favorite recipes from your own home and family histories. Get theirs. Open yourself up to being alone with that one family or individual and get to know them/him/her while you’re eating.
Eating together can become one of the great blessings that a small church pastor can have with the congregation and its families.
Sincerely,
A Small Church Pastor