Table Fellowship and Loving Intentions - September 20, 2023

What’s Going On? Table Fellowship and Loving Intentions

“Intentionality” is a word you hear a lot about in church administration.  It’s the “how” of “how then shall we live (as a church)?”  A few of our seniors recently asked, “Why do we have only one table in the fellowship hall for coffee?  It’s not very comfortable to sit at just one table while everyone else is looking at you.”  It’s a fair question.  It was never our intention to make our congregants feel uncomfortable.  The number of tables simply reduced with the number of folks using them on a given Sunday.  A few Sundays ago, we intentionally set three tables out. Kids@Mountainview had been using the hall during the service and their colouring pages and crayons were still on the tables at coffee time.  A few young children sat down and started colouring while a few older congregants sat down and sipped their coffee.  Others joined the table for conversation.  This spontaneous moment of community was an unintentional consequence of having the colouring supplies out with the extra tables.  Children’s Ministry Director Pastor Kristy and I had been talking earlier in the week about who needed what tables for which ministry.  We now wondered prayerfully, “How can we be intentional about how these tables bless and connect our community?”

Later, Pastor Kristy was telling me about this month’s topic for Kids@Mountainview, “Friendship.”  We were meeting in her office to talk about tables, and we had wandered into the topic of what the kids are working on at these tables every 4th Sunday when they use the hall.  Pastor Kristy showed me the “A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17) colouring sheet she had found for our younger members, and observed, “They always seem to want to colour, and they love giving away their colouring sheets as gifts!” She pointed to a corkboard covered in art.

Listening to Pastor Kristy, I thought of those who are unable to “come to the table” at all on Sundays for one reason or another and worship from home instead.  As we talked, the Holy Spirit gave us a very intentional nudge.  Old or young, a friend loves at all times!  As Pastor Erick said in a recent sermon, scripture tells us that loving one another is a huge part of how we come to know God (see 1 John 4:7).  And this is something we must do intentionally and with God’s help.

So intentionally, we’re going to put out four tables each week for a while and see how that goes.  Intentionally, Pastor Kristy is going to talk to the children about loving the friends in our church we don’t know very well like we love the ones closer to us.  Intentionally, the children will colour pages for friends in their community when the Spirit moves them.  Intentionally, I’ll send these pages to those who could use a reminder of how their community loves them.  Since the name of the topic for the month will be on each colouring bin, we can all intentionally bear in mind the monthly topic and uphold the children in prayer as they learn.

Meanwhile, I pray that God continues to show us new ways to love one another—at all times—as we come to know him more and more.

Jolene Veenstra
Pastoral Care Pastor