Table Fellowship Startup Part 1: Defining Some Terms
Or, What We Mean When We Say What We Mean to Say.
Table Fellowship
Table fellowship refers explicitly to the gathering of people around a shared meal in the way of Jesus. However, table fellowship for Jesus is a way of life, the habituated practice of relationship building and discipleship. While we might define table fellowship today as a specific gathering of people around a shared meal, the event is a practice to shape us in the way of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus creates, deepens, and even healing relationships among people around tables. This table fellowship for Jesus was more than merely an event but a way of life. In modern Western contexts (I write a white male living in Philadelphia, PA, in the USA), table fellowship is not often a way of life. Our lives have been enculturated and formed mainly by individualism (or working against individualism to take a lot of effort). Between work, after-school activities, service commitments, etc., it is common for households to share only a few meals together. The kingdom of God is quite different from this. In this case, the table fellowship way of Jesus is quite foreign to our lived experiences. For many of us, table fellowship must begin as an event to become a pattern, then a habit, and eventually a way of life.
House gathering or Table Community gathering
Whereas table fellowship might more specifically define the relational and spiritual formation happening around a shared meal, the house gathering (for us at The Table Philadelphia, we call it Table Community gathering) refers to the larger event of meeting in homes as a practice of the church. Now, this might sound like splitting hairs, and perhaps it is. However, it has proved to be helpful to make these distinctions as we develop relationships around Jesus. When we have shared language around which practices we engage in a particular space and with whom, we have greater clarity around our shared commitments to participate.
Table Community
A Table Community is what we at The Table Philadelphia refer to as a localized expression of the wider church, who seek to be present to God and each other and participate in the work of Jesus through Spirit-led practices. In short, a Table Community is not an event we go to, but a people we belong to and to whom we create a social witness to the kingdom of God for the sake of our neighbors and city.
In our context, we also shape who the Table Community is by what the community does together. Building on some of our previous terms, a Table Community would include (but not be limited to) a weekly Table Community gathering in a home (house gathering) and practicing table fellowship as an extension of the Lord’s Table (Eucharist). For us, a Table Community also seeks to live in shared practices throughout life as a social witness. This is the aim. Out of our shared time in house gatherings, through conversation and prayer, we inhabit other spaces together, engaging relationally in loving our neighbors.
In our terminology, these first three terms are concentric circles. At the center is the way of Jesus’s practice of table fellowship. Extending the Lord’s table into this particular set of relationships. This table fellowship can occur within the gathering of a Table Community. However, table fellowship is often a part of that gathering (and not the whole of the life of a Table Community). The practice of table fellowship within a Table Community gathering is part of the shared life and the formation of the social witness of a people known as a Table Community.
Church
We make at least three ecclesiological distinctions at The Table Philadelphia to embody our practices. I say “at least three…distinctions” because there are other distinctions, but these three tend to distinguish us from churches that do not have table fellowship and house gatherings at the center of their structure.
First, we believe that the Church exists in three spaces, not just one–Church is a way of life more than an event. Much more should be said about these three spaces, but sufficient for this description is that we see the church as the people who tend to God’s presence and participate in the way of Jesus through Spirit-led practices in all of life. Church is not just a Sunday worship gathering (though we do this) any more than church is just a table fellowship (though we do this too). Church also includes inhabiting coffee shops and schools, being present with the hurting and oppressed, and cleaning trash off our sidewalks. No one of these things is “church” alone, but together, living as the people of God within the three different spaces of relationship, we are the church.
The second distinction is that we believe the church exists in three spaces and shape our ecclesiology around these three spaces. These spaces are represented by three circles: close, connecting, and open. Each circle represents a space where relationships are shaped. Of primary importance is that within each relational space, going before us is always the presence of God. We, as the church, seek to inhabit each space, attentive both to God’s presence and the presence of those around us. Socially, different spaces involve different relationships. For example, the relationship I have with a new barista at my local coffee shop is vastly different from my relationship with a sibling in Christ in the same Table Community. That being the case, social interactions with each person will be different. And all the while, God is present in and among both of these relationships. With my sibling in Christ, it is a beautiful gift to be able to tend to God’s presence together in prayer, conversation, and other ways. However, with a new acquaintance at the coffee shop, we may not yet share the same commitments to Jesus, so tending to God’s presence may be what I am doing in this space, while the new friend is not considering this. The social dynamics are different. The conversations are different. The interactions are different, and that is wonderfully normal. We can tend to the Spirit’s leading in all things and honor the unique possibilities within each space of relationship.
The third distinction is that we see the church's primary task is to be the church, to be a vibrant and healthy testimony to the kingdom of God. By living into the Spirit-led practices, forming close-knit relationships around Jesus, doing the rugged work of reconciliation, and delighting in communal worship, we are shaped into a kingdom people. A people, by the work of the Spirit, consent to the Lordship of Jesus in all things. We follow Jesus into the way of the Sermon on the Mount, trusting in the faithfulness of God to lead us faithfully through our unfaithfulness. In this way, our formation is into a different kind of people, a kingdom people, who, as we live among those around us, as we love one another and our neighbors, are a social witness to the reality of the kingdom of God.
To be a social witness of the kingdom to the world, it appears that we need to submit to Jesus and be continually re-habituated into kingdom living through practices like table fellowship, confession, repentance, preaching the Gospel, and care for those around us. However, for many of us, our church experience might talk about this big vision but not yet inhabit an ecclesiological structure big enough to make space for the work of God. If we desire to see the church shape a people as a witness to the world, we need to have an ecclesiology that makes space for the unfolding work of the kingdom and shapes people to see and respond to it in all of life. Because the kingdom of God is much bigger than what we have constrained it to be. May we begin with repentance for trying to squeeze the liberating work of the kingdom into a necessary, but by no means sufficient, weekly event.
Conclusion
Take another look at the image above. The way we are learning to think about this is to say: “Table fellowships happens (not exclusively) within a Table Community gathering, and the Table Community gathering is a primary component (but not exclusive) of a Table Community. Our expression of the church, The Table Philadelphia, is made up of a collective of Table Communities.”
With these introductory terms in place, let me encourage you to consider your own terminology in developing a framework for your church. Shared language is helpful, even necessary for shared discipleship. It helps develop a short-hand for saying what we mean and others clearly understanding. So, consider our terminology and create your own for your context. Additionally, having this introductory explanation of terms will serve you in following along with the next portions of my writing.
What do you think? Comment below.
This describes perfectly what we experienced in Nicosia, Cyprus. It happened by accident, and we never had language for it. We also experienced it within the Anglican Church, which was interesting.
Your language will help me share our experience with others. Of course, I'll credit you. :-)
Interesting read my friend. I would be interested in knowing who you consider your audience? I’ve been in conversations with you and also have studied with David Fitch who developed the principles of the three circles, so I understand what you are pointing at. However, in my new position in facilitating discussions on how to broaden the understanding of the church among active church laity and clergy in a mainline context, I would think some broader language is needed to start them in familiar territory before moving them on to the “strange land” of table fellowship. Maybe we can have a zoom conversation someday soon?