Staying at the Table: Setting the Table
Yesterday, we kicked off our new sermon series, Staying at the Table, that is grounded in one of the congregational values we affirmed through our discernment process last year—Open Honest Conversation We stay at the table even when its hard, because we believe respect matters more than agreement, and empathy leads us forward together. Over these six weeks we will learn to stay at the table, to stay in relationship, while having hard conversations around issues that often cause division and discomfort in our relationships.
We began the series by Setting the Table together—thinking about why this work we will do together over these weeks is important and how God equips us to do it together. Pastor Clare shared the research Brené Brown did for her book Braving the Wilderness that revealed that our world is in a spiritual crisis. Brené’s prior research helped her define spirituality in this way—”Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion.” Her research revealed that we have broken that inextricable connection and are suffering the consequences of our disconnection. Brené suggests that work like we will be doing over the next six weeks is critical for rebuilding that sense of connection.
Pastor Clare shared the call story of the disciples in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 5:1-11) and named that in its echoes we can hear God’s call upon us today. Like the disciples before us, Christ is calling us out into deep waters and asking us to risk dropping our nets, our defenses, our guard, so that we might all be caught up in Christ’s love and grace.
Here are resources Pastor Clare used in her sermon yesterday or that have been created to support our learning and growth over the course of this series, that can be used to dig deeper at home over these weeks.
Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone.
See Pastor Clare’s summary of how we approach, understand and interpret scripture found below (along with her missing slide!). This will be a foundational piece to many of the conversations we will have in the coming weeks.
Staying at the Table Primer — We are actually getting to practice these open honest conversations in our adult study at Afterwords@KP each week during this series. This is a primer that was put together for those sessions, that is also helpful for anyone seeking to put this into practice in their day-to-day.