I sent out an email notice of an upcoming meeting early Sunday morning. The team usually meets via zoom, but periodically we hold a face to face meeting. The meeting, which occurred last night was one of those face to face meetings.

After I sent out the notice, Nancy replied to all of the people in the email chain, “I will bring veggie lentil soup, ideas, and a prayer for blessing.”

I replied, “I will bring some kind of bread and honey from this year’s harvest.”

Jeff wrote, “I’ll bring a spinach salad.”

Darlene responded, “I will bring fresh fruit salad.”

Cynthia added, “I’ll bring delicious organic red charred from Lake Chelan.”

Mark sent, “I’ll bring cookies.”

In my meeting notice, I didn’t announce a potluck, but a potluck occurred. In addition to the food offered by those who responded to the meeting notice when we filled our plates there were buns with homemade jam, baked beans, cowboy caviar (a bean salad with corn and black-eyed peas), banana bread, and maybe a few other foods that I have forgotten.

Without any advance planning or coordination, plates and silverware were put out, a delightful meal was enjoyed and clean up was accomplished by teamwork. Another group meeting in the building at the same time, asked, “What group is this?” When we responded they said, “WOW! You sure know how to eat!” It was a very good meal.

Yes, it was a church meeting. We’re practiced at potluck.

I serve on the board of a nonprofit that is not affiliated with the church. We had a meal with our annual meeting a while ago. There was a committee to plan the menu and arrange for the catering and another to host the meal and do the cleanup. It too was fine meal. But now that I am in my seventies, I don’t have patience for meetings to plan meetings. I would have been glad to bring food. I would have been glad to set tables and clean up. I did not, however, volunteer to serve on the planning or serving committees. I don’t need more meetings in my life these days. I’m sure I’ve attended my fair share over the years and don’t owe anyone any more meetings.

Not every church committee is as natural about potluck as the crew that met last night, but last night definitely wasn’t the first wonderful potluck that I’ve shared in our church. I was a bit rushed because we had just gotten home from a camping trip with our grandchildren, so I popped a tray of biscuits into the oven while I showered and grabbed a jar of honey from the shelf on the way out the door. I could have stopped for bread at a local bakery had I needed to cut my time even shorter. As it was, I was romanced by the smell of freshly-baked biscuits in the car on the way to the meeting. That aroma blended with a crock pot of lentil soup and a dish of baked beans. Folks were picking a few cherries to nibble on as the group gathered.

It wasn’t just the food that made the meeting meaningful.

After we had shared our meal and conducted our business, folks lingered. We checked in with each other, heard tales of summer adventures, found out about an upcoming surgery and ongoing medical treatment, shared tips on gardening, and found out that a local sports store has bargain priced bamboo cutting boards in their camping section. I don’t happen to be in the market for a cutting board, but were I, I doubt that I would have thought about shopping in that particular store even though I have wandered through their camp cooking and canning section while our grandchildren pondered the selection of toys in the basement of the store.

More important that the business of the group, more important than the meal shared, what nurtures me is the fellowship of good folk who share a common cause. We have planned and hosted a community fair, guest speakers, panel discussions, and other events. We have created a sharing ritual that is used in worship each month. We have read books together and discussed their contents. We have become friends.

These are people for whom I have written prayers. They are people who have prayed with and for me when I have faced challenges.

One of the members of our group has been widowed for several years. She happened to comment on one of the challenges of living alone. Another person quickly offered to stop by later this week and share that chore. That is the kind of community we have formed.

I tried to think about the lives of our children, who are less involved in church as adults than they were growing up in a household where both parents are ministers. I don’t know if they have any communities in their lives where friends offer support and fellowship in the manner of the group with whom I met last night. They do have good friends, and they do belong to groups dedicated to serving others, but sometimes I worry that their lives are a bit short on community.

Like other Christian churches, ours has declined in membership and participation, especially in the wake of the Covid pandemic closures. People got out of the habit of attending worship regularly. There seem to be fewer workers for projects and ministries. The church budget is shrinking as expenses go up. I can produce a long list of problems and challenges. But at least in some groups, we still remember how to do pot luck.

We still remember how to pray for one another. We still have blessings for shared meals. We still know how to work together to clean up a kitchen in a few minutes. We know where the dishes are stored and how to run the church dishwasher. We know who to call when we need a ride to the doctor’s office.

I hope that others continue to notice that we sure know how to eat. Maybe one of them will accept our invitation to join us. We’ll definitely have enough food to share. After all we know how to do potluck.