This podcast is an avenue to dialogue about the totality of the food experience. Everything from gardening, to preparing, to eating, to hospitality, to the Lord’s Table, with an eye toward how this act that we all have to engage in helps us experience the transformative power of God’s love and what it means to be human.
The Story of the Church with various guests
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Andrew Camp: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to a special episode of the biggest table. I am your host Andrew camp and in this podcast to be explored the table, food, eating and hospitality as an arena for experiencing God's love and our love for one another.
If you listen regularly to this podcast, you know that towards the end of each episode, I asked the guest, what is the story you want the church to tell.
As we reflect on where we are in our own personal journey. I compiled some of the answers to this question in order to hopefully encourage all of us, including myself to think through what story we want our lives to tell.
As 2024 comes to an end and 2025 begins. I hope all of us, including myself again, will choose a more beautiful way forward. A way that reflects the beauty of the table. A place where everyone feels welcome. A place where each one of us can be ourselves. And where each one of us can glimpse the face of Jesus in the other.
I hope you enjoy the episode.
To begin this compilation. I start with Andy [00:01:00] Root's, answer to the question. What is the story you want the church to tell? Mainly because he offers first and encouragement to all of us as Christians, whether you're a leader or just a participant in a congregation.
And second, he exhorts us to adopt a posture in which we wait. And listen. For the voice of God. Here's Andy's answer.
Andy Root: Yeah, that is a really great question. Um, well, I, I would, I would answer it two ways.
Um, when it comes to the leaders of the church, uh, what I would want, the story I want pastors particularly to tell themselves is that this, it's a little bit of a, a goodwill hunting, which is one of my favorite movies, um, is a little bit, it's not your fault and that isn't, it's not your fault. to get you off the hook and even to justify kind of real lazy or uninspired ministry.
But it is to say there are huge cultural currents that have shifted here. And [00:02:00] so you can't think that I think a lot of us were told, especially coming out of conservative Protestantism in the 90s or whatever, like we were going to save the church. We were the hope. And then it's been really hard. Three decades, you know, of the 21st century.
And it's really easy to feel like it's my fault. Like I wasn't creative enough. Like I, I blew it. Look at those other people who are making such a bigger impact and I, and I want to release pastors from that. And I also want them to, and I guess there's a little bit of a judgment here is like to repoint them to the absolute depth and beauty of ministry, um, to not think that there's something more profound than ministry itself, that walking with people as they live and as they die.
It's just. you know, use the, the, the kind of perspective of this podcast to set the table for people, um, both literally and figuratively is an incredible privilege and is an [00:03:00] amazing thing. And that ministry seems utterly powerless, you know, per. Compared to other forms of human action, like law or entrepreneurship or politics or, you know, celebrity, all those forms of human action seem more powerful, but it just could be in its absurdity that ministry is the most powerful form of human action.
It looks weak. It will always need to be weak, but it's the only form of human action that participates in. death and has life come out of it. Um, that that's a profound form of action, that life comes out of death in this form of action. So I want to encourage the leaders, both lay leaders and kind of pastoral leaders, that there's something utterly beautiful in the practice of ministry.
And so the story I want the church to live out of is that in this moment, the crisis we face is not the crisis of decline. We. We're in a, we're in a tough moment, there's no doubt about it. Um, that, but it's not, that's not the story that should keep us up at night. Um, the [00:04:00] story or the crisis that should keep us up at night is how do we create space, sit at a table together again, and be able to listen for, um, the speaking of a living God?
How, how do we form communities that are attentive in, in a posture to hear God speak again, God move again. Um, and how do we become aware of that? Because I think this God is acting and moving. Um, how do we do that? And how do we, so then how do we live in the crisis of a God who is God that we cannot control?
That's a story that should keep us up at night, keep us wondering, keep us wrestling with, not the story of we don't have enough. How do we get more? How do we parlay this into more gains? Um, yeah. Again, it's not being naive. Some of that stuff really matters, but I do not think we'll be able to get to a point of even stabilizing our institutional structures until we have a kind of opening up to a [00:05:00] deeper theological realities.
And. I think, I don't think one can feed the other. In other words, I do not think being concerned just about the crisis of decline and the crisis of lost resources will ever get us to the depth of theology we need to get to, but maybe really attentively asking the question, where is Jesus Christ? How are we faithful to Jesus Christ?
How do we live out of this story will put us in a position, um, That the church institutionally will be okay, um, but we, we go the other direction all the time. I think
Andrew Camp: Next up, we have Gisela's answer to the question. Gisela exhorts us to remember the Kony.
Gisela that encourages us to remember the Reality of being around the table as Christ's body. Full of good food and good wine.
Gisela Kreglinger: I want the church to relearn what it means to be the body of Christ. What it means that Christ is divine, and we are the branches, and what it means to love [00:06:00] one another as we are rooted firmly in the earth, as we share meals together, as we learn to be hospitable. I think, um, I, I think we can deepen what it means to be the body of Christ, what it means to belong to one another, perhaps more so even in your own family.
Hmm. What it means to open the door and to welcome new members in, to share life, to care for each other, to readjust our lives in such a way that we know each other better, know our ups and downs and how we can love one another well. And often we can do that by gathering for meals, you know, I have a home group where you gather for a meal and we're naturally conversations come up and that you, you understand where you're at and then, [00:07:00] um, learn what it means to care for each other.
Andrew Camp: In order for us to reclaim what it means to be Christ body like Gisela just encouraged us to Kathy Khan, author of loving disagreement. Exhorts us to remember that this table, that Christ's body.
That our communities must be about the flourishing of everyone and not just who we pick and choose.
Kathy Khang: I want the story to be about the flourishing of everyone, not of the select. I want it to be the flourishing and the care of everyone and not just who's convenient.
Andrew Camp: And for the flourishing to take place, we need to dismantle the white male, God that grace G soon Kim encouraged us to in her episode. And to do that, we need to tell the story of love that [00:08:00] God loves us just as we are, no matter what
Grace Ji-Sun Kim: Okay, well, there's a lot of stories, but I think the main story would be that God loves us no how we look, what our culture, our ethnicity is, what our gender, our sexuality, whatever it is.
We're all unique. We're all different. There's nobody the same as you, Andrew, or me. So all of our uniqueness, God loves. So that's it. Love, I think, is the most important message, and in turn, we need to love God and our neighbors. I think there is, I think that just wraps up the whole gospel message, the whole biblical message, and I think if we can focus on that.
Then I think we would all be trying to dismantle this white male God.
Andrew Camp: Next is David. Swanson's answer to the question.
And he reminds us that through [00:09:00] Jesus, the world is being recreated. That in the midst of pain, in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of grief, which there's plenty of in this world. We can see the work of Jesus. Redeeming recreating this world into the beautiful world. He longs for it to be.
David Swanson: Uh,
It's, it's Athanasius who says that, uh, the entire universe is created through the second, uh, person of the Trinity is created through Christ.
And Athanasius says, And, and through his life and death and resurrection, the universe is recreated through Jesus. I, I want the story that we tell about what Jesus has done to be really, really big, uh, that Jesus has, has recreated the universe. And we see evidence of evil resisting that we see that what we've done to this world.[00:10:00]
And there are our witnesses who have have lived through the worst of all of that and can still testify that Jesus has recreated the universe. Um, and, and so I, I, that's the story I want us to tell that because Jesus has done this. We get to play our role. We get to reclaim that role of of caretaking that that that affectionate caretaking for our neighbors and for ourselves.
We can allow ourselves to be cared for by our neighbors by the places that we've been called to. I, I don't think we can, uh, overstate the, the, the power and the beauty of what it means that Jesus has recreated everything.
Andrew Camp: Next. We have Richard Beck who encourages us to reclaim the central message of Jesus, namely grace, that none of us have gotten what we deserve, but rather have been lavished with the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. [00:11:00] And that for us to imagine a more beautiful way, we need to extend that same grace we have received to others, no matter what
Richard Beck: wow. I mean, a lot of things. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of things,
you know, I was talking, I'll just say something that was just on my mind because it's something I talked about with some of my students yesterday. You know, we were in class and And I was talking about faith and, um, and I said, you know, one of the
distinctive things about the ministry of Jesus, a lot of scholars will point to this and say that the distinctive thing about the message of Jesus and the distinctive aspect of the Christian faith is this idea of grace. You don't see that really emphasized much in the Old Testament. You don't see it emphasized over much in Eastern [00:12:00] religions, whether you're kind of locked in kind of to a kind of a karma cycle.
You don't see a lot of it in Islam or even in paganism, right? But this idea of grace. is a distinctly Christian idea that, that, um, you're not going to get what you deserve, that there's, you're going to get something, um, better, you know, something you don't deserve. And I kind of wish the church would become like the prophets of this, you know, that we would be the people that would be distinguished by grace and graciousness.
Um, and I think that connects with hospitality because I think hosp I think Acts of hospitality are the incarnations of grace, right? It is, it is a, you're welcome here. You know, [00:13:00] um, I see you, um, that will to embrace, you know, cause so, so grace doesn't just become this line. I love everybody. It's not aspirational, it's not vague, it's concrete and practicing.
And so, to me, that would be what I wish the church, like, we would get back to what the central, what I think is the central message of the Christian religion, which is a message of forgiveness and mercy and grace. Um, and that's what we will be, um, Known for, you know, that we wouldn't be known for hostility or anger
or
just anxiety.
We just look like a very anxious kind of group of people. Um, but non anxious people filled with grace, um, I think would be,
I
mean, how attractive is that? I think it's just a compelling message. And I just. I'm dismayed and perplexed why Christians aren't better at proclaiming their own faith [00:14:00] in many ways, like, because the Christianity I see online and in the world to me just seems kind of unrecognizable to me in many ways because it's so ungracious.
Um, so that's what I would say. Grace.
Andrew Camp: Next, I hope you are as encouraged by these words of Chris battles. As I was, when he first said them.
That we would not be so consumed by a beautiful edifice, a beautiful building. Beautiful. Structures beautiful programs, but rather we would be consumed by a beautiful people who live beneath the shadows of our steeples.
Chris Battle: I hope we can understand that we need to get out of the building. Our church caught fire in 2012.
And we had people who, we were meeting in a school down the street from us. And we had people who would not come to the school because, and worship because it wasn't a church. [00:15:00] And I think we've gotten so con, so connected with
the building that we've identified with, that we've missed the community that the churches are in. Hmm. And. I want us to get to this point where we're not consumed by a beautiful edifice, but we are consumed by beautiful people who live in the beneath the shadows of our, our steeples. I want us to see the value of community and the people who would, again, who may never grace the threshold of your, your church, um, who have significant problems and struggles.
But [00:16:00] also have many assets and gifts that can be utilized. And I believe God gifted all of us to be, to be utilized for the glory, for his glory, and again, to create the kingdom, which he wants us to establish. Um, I think we got to get beyond our political anxieties and all the stuff that divides us. Um, it's just, uh, it just, it frustrates me, you know?
Mm-Hmm. . Um, but when they come to the , when they come to the garden, we don't care about your politics. You know, we we're, we're, we're, we're, we're talking about the soil. Um, so yeah, for, for me, um, I've probably become a bigger critic of the church. I hate to say that in that way, but it's a loving critique.
Yeah. It's a loving critique because I believe, you know, Jesus said, you know, he said, build my church. He never said build a building. Mm hmm. You know, [00:17:00] never said build a building. I think it's about building relationships with people and letting your light so shine that, you know, they might see it and glorify our father in heaven.
Um, I think that's what it's all about. Just being in proximity to the people that they may see the presence of God. Um, and. They may know that his, he's, he is, he is still King. He reigns.
Andrew Camp: And as we fall in love with the beautiful people who live beneath the shadow of our steeples, we'll realize that we were created to depend on each other, that we need each other just as Jeannine Hanger
encourages us to, in her answer of what is the story you want the church to tell?
Jeannine Hanger: Hmm.
That's a great question.
What's the story? I want, um, I so want the church to be a place that loves well, and, uh, I, I get sad that we are, I, [00:18:00] I think our, our radical individualism works completely at cross purposes with what the church is meant to do.
You know, I think that one of the. One of the key insights about, uh, what I've learned in this is this idea that dependence is the goal with Christ. Our union with Christ is, it's like we're not meant to outgrow our need for him. And yet we live in a context where we raise our kids to become autonomous, independent beings so we can support themselves, you know, like that's the goal.
And, you know, but, but when you think about the sheep and the shepherd, the sheep never outgrow their, their need for a shepherd. They always need the sheep. And I want, I want more people in the church to see dependence on Christ and each other as actually the way that the church is supposed to operate.
And, um, I get sad that, [00:19:00] um, you know, in our own context, like I just, how can we How can we be the church if nobody needs anything from each other, you know, you end up, we become consumers and, uh, that makes me sad because it's, it's so much bigger and more robust than that. And I think that's what we have to offer people who are hungry, like truly spiritually hungry, but um, You know, I just worry that we lose our sense of hunger and need and you know, this we're so I'm good.
I'm good I don't want to put you out, you know, so I'm fine. I don't need prayers or anything I'm you know, like that kind of thing
Andrew Camp: You
Jeannine Hanger: know, I want so much more for the church to really embody this Body of Christ that yeah that we're designed to be
Andrew Camp: True to form Kendall Vanderslice, who's written extensively on the spiritual nature of [00:20:00] bread, encourages us to realize that our faith is intertwined with bread.
Kendall Vanderslice: I think I want the church to tell the story of, of bread, that we are a, we are a faith that is centered on bread, on a God that calls Godself the bread of life, um, on a tradition that is, you know, takes place at a table that is the sharing of bread, um, that, that bread is, at the center of our faith and it has so much to teach us about that faith.
Um, and so that's if, you know, I would love if I could just have everyone, you know, I've had some people read my books and say like, I'll never take communion the same way again. And I would love for anyone who does not, you know, currently see this to be such a, a beautiful, powerful, central piece of our faith.
I hope that that changes with, with my work.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. I've always, Longed for the day when I walk up to a church and smell the smell of fresh baked bread being prepared for the Eucharist, like I, there's something about it that I'm like, I, I would [00:21:00] love to have that experience, um, versus a stale matzah cracker.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes, yes.
Andrew Camp: That is
Kendall Vanderslice: not, you know, you don't want to think that God tastes like, you know, a stale.
Andrew Camp: No.
Kendall Vanderslice: Cracker.
Andrew Camp: No. And I've always thought that. A little piece of
Kendall Vanderslice: cardboard. Yeah. That sticks to the roof of your mouth.
Andrew Camp: Exactly. Yes. Washed down by Welch's grape juice. That's right. That was invented solely for the, you know, to celebrate communion.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yep. Yep.
Andrew Camp: And so, cause I've always thought that the Eucharist should be a, an amuse bouche of the kingdom. You know? I love that. Yeah. Awakens our palate. Yes. Um, and so fresh baked bread.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yes.
Andrew Camp: It does awaken the palate. Absolutely. You know, the smell, the, the aroma. Um, there's nothing quite like it.
Kendall Vanderslice: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Next is Caleb Campbell.
In the midst of challenging us to love our Christian nationalist neighbors while Caleb wants the story of the church to be one of Christ is risen. Indeed.
Caleb Campbell: Hmm.
[00:22:00] That Christ is risen indeed,
and that you can see the proof and the fruit of it at this table that we're sitting at. That in my community. There is a communion of saints that includes all ethnos, all social class, all political commitments, all, all manner of difference between us. And in that communion of saints in the local table, uh, that, that we're in, That our community might hear the story that Christ is risen indeed.
Andrew Camp: Next up, we have Heather Gorman and Mark Nelson, who in their episode, talked about their new book, lunchroom theology.
And their answer to the question. What [00:23:00] is the story you want the church to tell? They encouraged us to get back to the compelling vision of Jesus presented to us in the gospels and the new Testament. Mark also encouraged us to choose a more beautiful way because it will be us as the people of God who will get to decide what the story is
Heather Gorman: I think the story that I want the church to tell is one that is unapologetically rooted in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It all goes back to that. To me, this isn't about an institution. This isn't about power. This isn't about programs. I This is about Jesus, about God incarnate becoming one of us and showing us a better way to live.
And as Christians, uh, you know, we confess our primary confession is that Jesus is Lord, you know, in the ancient world, it's and Caesar is not in a modern world. It's and our president is not, or our Congress is not, or whoever else. Claims it, you know, uh, Silicon Valley. It's not like none of those things compared to the [00:24:00] lordship of Jesus.
And if we put that as our number one thing and recognize that our job is to extend this kingdom, but that kingdom looks like it ought to reflect its King. And if Jesus is the King who was, Washing feet and sharing tables with Pharisees and sinners and tax collectors and all these other folks like our job is to serve him and we do that in a way that ought to be modeling his ways, not the ways of our culture.
Our politics are modern day lunch rooms. And so I think it would just be getting back to that compelling vision that Jesus gives us.
Mark Nelson: Yeah, I, I think my answer would be, there's a quote we have in the epilogue where someone was asked, you know, what, what do you see the future of the church and Christianity to be?
And they said that I expect that Christianity will become uglier than it has ever been in our lifetimes in the next 10 years. And I expect more beautiful expressions of Christianity will [00:25:00] be emerging than we've ever seen. And he said, as the uglier becomes uglier, more and more people wake up and go, wait a minute.
I don't want to be a part of this. I can't be a part of that. And they'll, they'll dare to do something. And so I think, I think when we look at the church and followers of Jesus and what the church has become, I think we should say, I think things will get better and I think things will get worse. And I'm going to try to invest my life in where they're getting better.
I love Jesus and I love church in that order. There are two ways set before us, the ugly and the beautiful. The church has to choose the beautiful because we are the ones who will determine over the next few decades what Christianity looks like looks like in our cities and our neighborhoods and our families and I get to in tomorrow morning at 8 a. m. I get to talk to about 25 ministry students who are freshmen. And I'm going to tell them this, I said, you are the ones, if you, if you pursue this as a ministry, if you pursue this as a vocation in your life, you are the ones who will [00:26:00] determine how beautiful or how ugly the ways of Jesus are viewed by this world and how it's lived out in the church.
We must we we have to choose the more beautiful way. That's what I want the church to understand That's that's what I want the church to become by choosing the way of Jesus, it is the more beautiful way
Andrew Camp: Next is Derek. Weston's answer to the question. And Derek invites us to reconsider the divine and human elements and food because when Jesus was with his disciples on the night, he was betrayed, he identified himself as bread and wine. And so Derek invites us to consider what does that mean? And maybe in, so doing Jesus invites us to consider food as a primary way of us being invited into God's story.
Derrick Weston: When Jesus was at the space where he was saying the most important things to his disciples, is last night, [00:27:00] um, he washes their feet and they, and, and, and, In that context of Last Night Together, I'm going to tell you all of the important things. He compares his body to bread and wine.
There's something so, and, and, and, and, importantly, he doesn't compare his self to wheat and grapes. He compares himself to the great gifts that God has given us through the machinations of human art. Um, wheat gets transformed into bread by, by the divine and the, and humans. Working together. Um, wine gets trans or grapes get transformed to wine by the divine and the human [00:28:00] working together.
Mm-Hmm. . And to me there is something Absolutely. Um, there's this beautiful symbol, um, of, of what food can be, which is this divine human cooperation that gives life, that enhances the world that, um, that brings. Joy, as well as nourishment that brings that, that fills us in a way, um, that leaves us satisfied.
And I caught myself once, uh, in a conversation about my work, uh, having a conversation with someone and said, you know, I don't understand how the church got so obsessed with sex when the Bible is so obsessed with food. Um. I want [00:29:00] us to rediscover the divine in food. I want us to rediscover all of the divine dimensions that are in food.
The ways in which it, it can bring us to joy and to lament the way that it can build connections between ourselves and us and God and us and creation. I want us to just rediscover Food in God's story because food is so central to God's story, and it's so it's, it's almost the primary way that God invites us into God's story.
And so, um, that's a vague, vague answer,
Andrew Camp: And finally we have Scot McKnight's answer to the question.
Scot McKnight: Well, I want the church to tell the story of Jesus as the living embodiment of God, And that in the [00:30:00] face of Jesus, we see the face of God.
And that as we become Christ like, through the power of God's grace and the Holy Spirit, people will see the presence of God in Christ in us. That's the story. That, uh, I want us to tell
Andrew Camp: I hope you have enjoyed listening to the answers to this question. And I hope. And in listening, you reflect on your own journey. You reflect on your own faith community. And you reflect on the story you want your life to tell and the story you want your faith community to tell.
Before we conclude this episode, I would be remiss if I didn't share my own answer to that question. And so what is the story I want the church to tell.
I want the church to gather around tables and places where everyone can feel welcome. I want those tables to be large, not just in the amount of food there, but the diversity of who is seated at the table. I want people to remember [00:31:00] that through Christ death, he has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between people. That we are no longer enemies, but our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of race. Economic status, political ideology, gender and sexual identity.
I want the table to be large and the way it loves that at the table, each of us can feel the freedom to stop hiding, but rather be who Jesus created us to be in all of our uniqueness and giftedness.
I want the table to be large and how small and insignificant it is. Jesus told us to serve one another. Jesus told us to wash each other's feet.
He never told us to go and acquire, but rather in our serving in our becoming small and our loving our enemies, the world would be turned upside down.
May we stop looking toward worldly ways and worldly means, but rather at the table, may we, once again, humble ourselves for the sake of others.
That's the story I want the church to tell.
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the biggest table.
Thank you for being part of my journey and [00:32:00] thank you for that in me. Be part of your journey in small ways. I look forward to 2025, where I'll have some new and exciting episodes of the biggest table.
But until those new episodes are released, may we all continue to explore what it means to be transformed by God's dog around the table and through food? Until next time. Bye.