Lunch fellowships in church

On the first Sundays of the month, after communion service, my local church gathers together for fellowship lunch. Each family brings food to share. Visitors are welcome to join. If you leave, people will insist, smiling and pleading, that you stay and have a small bite, at least. This has been going around since my earliest memory of being in church and is one of the highlights of the church's monthly calendar. 

After getting food, you find a table and chair, small and colorful, borrowed from the nearby pre-school classrooms. (Our church has a school ministry.) You have a chat with others. If you hardly know anyone, someone else will approach and welcome you. A familial warmth circulates in the atmosphere. The formal communion in the worship service overflows in the informal lunch tables. Everyone feels at home such that nobody hesitates to eat with their hands, should the food require it.

That seems like a nightmare for introverts, but there's a table for the quiet and shy. They usually recognize each other and gather together. The fellowship lunch for them may feel just as welcoming. We have people in church who are naturally predisposed to quiet; the people at church would simply come over and ask, "Hi, are you good? We have more food." Our church excels in hospitality and generosity. 

The local church is amazing to me. In my life, God has brought me to places where there are churches that preach the Gospel and that happen to serve amazing food. Food equals warm welcome in Filipino Christian culture. 

On this Monday morning, as I prepare for work, I remember the lunch fellowship we just had: a feast for the body and soul. 

I love what Alistair Begg wrote:

The world is full of people struggling to find where they fit or striving to maintain their position in a company, society, friendship circle, or even their own family. God does not ask you to struggle or to strive but simply to enjoy. If you belong to God's people by faith in Jesus, then you have been rescued by His name, you have been freed from share, and you are part of His people. It is here that you fit, here that you find your home.

So yes: the church feels homey because it is home.