With the compact worship kits of Table Church, Rev. Dr. Catherine Smith shares her vision of the power and gifts of the small and local.
There’s something about a table, especially with food. If I couldn’t see and feel this myself, I certainly would have learned it from Jesus, who invites us to the Holy Table, who is the Bread of Life, who cooked fish on the beach. No fuss and fancy napkins, just come. So, there’s something about a table. I can feel it in myself too. Somehow, I can receive things more easily and offer them too with a cup of tea in my hands. In an unhurried conversation sat round a table, it’s easier to let some things come out and some things sink in. This I know about tables. The United Church too knows the potential of tables, as it celebrates with 100 Tables.
Some things I know about worship too. I know that wonder and worship and awe make us more deeply who we are and that these things cannot be simply handed to us. They refuse commodification. Each of us must find a practice of opening. To dispose ourselves for worship is a practice. Sometimes we’re afraid of this, as worship leaders and as those who wait to be led. But it’s vital, that broken openness that both Gordon Lathrop and Parker Palmer speak of. I know the intimacy that worship creates can break us open if we let it, despite our anxieties.
Finally, I know that all the rural communities I’ve served or experienced were exemplars in the art of feeding others and of breaking bread together.
Knowing these things deep in my bones, I began to shape something called Table Church—small containers filled with music, scripture, brief reflections, simple prayers, tactile intercessions, and wondering questions that can be shared between dinner and dessert or with coffee and a cinnamon bun.
I believe that whether we are able to express it clearly or not, we all hunger to ask deep questions in small gatherings, where trust grows. I’m convinced of the need for individuals and small congregations to be able to access simple—but not simplistic—resources to support their worship with one another, however small the group.
When I began writing the first worship series, I was serving a small rural congregation in New Brunswick, down by the Confederation Bridge. I’ve been deeply affected by my time with rural faith communities. I’ve loved them and felt loved by them. I’ve known their names and wanted them to know the name God calls them by. I’ve seen what shuts them down internally. Each congregation called forth all manner of imagination and theological reflection from me, and none more than my last pastoral charge in Murray Corner. When Covid hit, my hope for them called out this one more thing.
Table Church creates content for ten worship gatherings around a theme. The use is flexible. You can dip in almost anywhere in the series—use one or two or ten. Table Church doesn’t require that you have a paid accountable minister present. It asks only to be hosted by one (or more) in the gathering who is willing, and includes a “Getting Ready” section with preparatory pointers for the host.
You can find segments of the first series on Hem of the Light by searching Table Church, and also order the newest series Places. At the heart of Table Church is the love of small, the invitation to flourish there. Places invites us into the gifts and challenges of small and local.
Since it began, Table Church has found a number of unique settings. With small groups within a larger gathering sharing worship time at card tables—each table its own congregation of four. At United Church Women Worship—in one case, when a hurricane blew through and church was cancelled but 10 folks showed up anyway). In retreat leadership, personal reflection, or in times of transition or discerning. At points within a cluster, with one paid accountable ministry supporting the faith life of multiple small places, each responsible on many occasions for their own worship gathering.
Running through Table Church are also questions about our faith…
What is faith community now? How is the larger church accountable to tiny congregations that may fall off the edge, slowly diminishing without challenge or support that is spoken in a language meaningful for, and respectful of, their contexts?
How do small congregations, dangling over a hole left by survival amalgamations, or living within a community from which services—medical, educational, connectional—have withdrawn, calling on whomever they can find to fill a pulpit on Sundays, or just staying home, experience communal worship?
How is the wider church accountable to these small scatterings of people? How do those who are small, and sometimes bereft or bitter, retain accountability to the wider church? How do we speak to one another? How do we love one another? How do we worship?
Let’s continue to live in these questions. Let’s gather at tables discovering vital and nimble ways to live as God’s people in whatever setting we find ourselves: adrift, exhausted, seeking, gifted, in love.
—Rev. Dr. Catherine Smith loves the life and lessons of small places. Now retired from active pastoral ministry within congregations, she initiated the annual three-day gathering Rural Routes Through the Holy, and creates resources and reflections for small groups and individuals.
The views contained within these blogs are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of The United Church of Canada.