Food and Jesus

A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community and Mission around the Table by Tim Chester.  I do not anticipate getting an author's comment on this post, but Jonathan has met the author and sat under his teaching last month at a conference.  We so appreciate Chester's perspective on ministry from a European perspective and would highly recommend any book he has written.

The basic premise of A Meal With Jesus is that sharing a meal is far more than just getting a bite to eat. By looking throughout the New Testament, Tim shows us example after example of meals that Jesus was involved in and how often the meal was the setting for something profound. That is true even today. Meals shared with others represent times of fellowship, gatherings of the church, community witness and of course opportunity for mission. As Chester walks us through Luke's Gospel account, we see meals as enacted grace, enacted hope, enacted promise, etc. 

This is not a book about "How we do it and why you should to" but instead "This is how Jesus did it and why He did it and we should all do likewise". 

This is an extremely convicting book that forces you to reevaluate hospitality in your home.  We ourselves have much growth to make in this area.  Hospitality is huge to our ministry and we can and should be doing more to gather people together around a meal.  No excuses, like lack of seating or feeling like the meal needs to be a huge production...I need to keep it simple, approachable (meaning not perfect with my list of high expectations), and see people as the focus, not the food or a clean home.  I appreciated the theological background that Chester gave and then of course some practical helps.

We are attempting to incorporate more meal sharing in our home and will soon endeavor to host a weekly meal for our church family (divided in 2 small groups) followed by a discussion time as we work through the Porterbrook material.  Trying to lead by example in this area for our church family.  And if you will be hearing our furlough presentation this summer, these themes of meals and hospitality will be a huge focus.  Looking forward to sharing with you more in person!