Published Thu, Jul 09, 26.
Written by Kristy Klitz.
“We sent you Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ…” (1 Thessalonians 3:2)
The work and ministry of Timothy, one of the early church leaders and apprentice of Paul, was to spread the gospel of Christ. And this is still the “work” of the church today, including the Gathering Table ministry.
Last month, we had the joy of getting to share this good news (gospel) about Jesus with 10 people during the June Pop-Up Dinner in Old Town Clovis.
If you are not familiar with these dinners, we host dinners every other month in our community as a way for the community to come together, share our stories with each other, and ultimately speak the hope of Jesus in the dark, broken, hopeless places.
The goal of the dinners is not to just “fill” the table, but to make space for people to come who God might be drawing. It is a lot of fun as we partner with the Holy Spirit in what he is doing in people’s lives. But this is also easier said than done, especially when it requires us to wait on the Lord and not get ahead of him.
For whatever reason, we were not seeing very many people sign up for the June dinner. Last year almost every dinner was packed to the limit of 20 people, with most of the dinners having a waitlist if any spots opened up last minute. This “slow down” could be because we had a short pause on the dinners earlier this year (see our previous posts to see why). A week out from the June dinner, we only had 6-7 confirmed guests, which included a few of those helping with the dinners.
Our natural urge was to promote, promote, promote and simply fill the table with people. We didn’t want the dinner to “fail” or “flop”! But we were reminded of who the dinners are for - God’s glory and his plans, not our own. Ultimately the dinners are for spreading the gospel, not filling tables. So we sat on it (no pun intended), doing nothing different than our normal promoting of the dinner and trying to keep in step with the Holy Spirit on any personal invites for the dinner.
The day of the dinner we had 9 confirmed spots. While it wasn’t the 15-20 we have grown used to, we knew that those coming were who God wanted to be there, so we called it good and set one extra seat for a total of 10 in case there were any last minute guests. Wouldn’t you know, God had a plan for that extra seat!
About one hour before the dinner, with everything set and ready, a man walked into the venue, that was closed, thinking the restaurant was opened, and asked if he could have a glass of water (we typically do these dinners “after hours” or during days when the venue or restaurant is closed to the public). I told him sure I’d be happy to, remembering Jesus’s words of ”I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” (Matthew 25:35), where he spoke of showing kindness and mercy to those in need. As we talked, it quickly became apparent that this man was likely homeless or in between homes, and that it was not his first time asking for water at this venue. (That’s another story)
It became quite clear to me that the one extra seat at the table was for this man. No surprise that the theme for this dinner and the context in which the people’s stories and the gospel that would be shared was “belonging.” And here came in a man who likely felt like he didn’t belong, yet God ordained a seat at the table for him. What a beautiful picture of the gospel of Christ! That Jesus became a man and died for us who were outcasts because of our sin that separated us from our holy God, so that we can now belong to God as sons and daughters, co-heirs with Christ of his glorious kingdom. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The message for that man that night, and the good news for all of us, is that Jesus took our place on the Cross for the payment of our sins, so that we might be given the right-standing (righteousness) with God that he purchased for us in Christ. There is nothing we have to do to earn it, we just receive God’s beautiful gift of grace by faith. In Christ, we belong to God. That is the gospel! The good news that we get the privilege of spreading at each of these Pop-Up Dinners.
Next time we hope to share about the bee keeping apprenticeship and what God is doing there! Thank you for your prayers and support.