Introducing the ‘Third Sunday Lord’s Table’
In October of 2017 the church began a series seeking to engage pressing social and faith issues through an immersion experience of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Taking place on the third Sunday of each month the service of worship will be centered around and focused on a specific topic related to social justice. In October the service focused on hunger and the ‘table’ that was set with the sacrament was constructed out of cardboard food boxes in which that week’s food donations from the local supermarket were received. The liturgy included a litany of hunger, a message centered on the same, and an opportunity for all present to gather around the makeshift ‘table’ in order to come face to face with an issue affecting so many in our neighborhoods and communities. In addition the point was strengthened as congregants received date-expired bread during the sacrament which had come from that same donation and which was quite dry and stale. Comments from the congregation afterwards indicated that the encounter with local hunger, which is largely well hidden, was both striking and appreciated.
Patterson Community Church’s ‘Third Sunday Lord’s Table’ celebration will continue each month with the November 19th service focused on the issue of ‘homelessness’ which in our area can often mean a dire lack of affordable housing which forces our community’s most vulnerable into unsafe, unhealthy, and overcrowded small apartments.
