Baking as Ministry Update

Hey everyone -

Just thought I'd give an update on my work at St. Andrew's Lutheran in Grand Rapids! I wrote in an earlier post that I was going to be working with the newly formed bread ministry team there. This past weekend, we had our first meeting, and what a good time it was. Not only was there laughter and memories shared, but it was also a great day to get your hands full of flour and dough, and to talk ministry on a practical level - feeding people - here is my body, given for you.

We started off the day (there were 10 people involved, 4 leaders and 6 parishioners) by starting the mixing process. Loren (interim pastor) and I had divided the group into pairs, so everyone could work an individual recipe and request help if they needed it. We had chosen 4 different recipes to utilize, and what a commotion the beginning was - it made me laugh! My task was to go around and answer any questions, while letting the bakers do their work. It was funny - almost everyone there had baking experience, with years of expertise behind them (I was the youngest in the kitchen by years), and everyone was commenting on how "oh, well, I do it this way...", or "should I do this now? What about the butter? Where's the yeast?" Along the way, as we waited for the yeast to proof and before we added the flours and oats and the like, I had opportunities to engage people in the science behind bread baking. Before we knew it, our doughs were mixed and kneaded, and we were on to Bible study.

Naturally, Loren had chosen texts for the day that revolved around stories of bread - needless to mention, the Lord's Supper, the Bread of Life motif, Elijah and the widow, and so on. We shared bread memories from childhoods and adulthoods, and then we shared lunch together - wondrous soups (chicken and red lentil), beautiful bread (an orange-raisin whole wheat challah) - and gathered for conversation on what a more formal bread ministry might look like.

The ministry conversations were led by a stoic, gentle lady named Kathleen Blake. Kathleen lived in England for over a year, and while there she was able to participate with various churches doing bread ministry to the homeless - she found a spot in the city she was in, and with a group of other women, baked bread once a week for the homeless - and soon, invited them in to bake with her. She was talking about how she envisioned doing work with Crystal Lake, a poorer community in northeastern Grand Rapids, to bring them in to the church simply to eat and share a meal - not to evangelize or talk church.

Which brought up an interesting conversation - how do we, as Christians, help people (host events in the church) without implying that we are there to evangelize or convert? As Christ instructs us to be in solidarity with the poor, we should be able to help purely out of Christian calling rather than indicating a secondary agenda. We went back and forth on this for a while, negating different times to use the church, what to put on flyers, etc.

I've been thinking a great deal about this lately. It's amazing, how it all comes full circle with what I've been learning in my rural ministry class in seminary - in the context of living rural, and being poor, it's important to not go in to a community with the notion that you are going to change the world, change their lives - because as my great aunt put it so beautifully, "people live in their cabins, their shanties, their trailers, because they want to. They're not asking for help." It's interesting to consider this notion as I move forward in my hopes of beginning my own bread ministry - people will always need to be fed, but will they necessarily desire the true Bread of Life?

Anyway - just my two cents. I had a wonderful weekend in Grand Rapids, and some good, engaging conversations that made me realize, away from the academics and the cities, that there is ministry to be done here. God is alive and active in Marcell and Grand Rapids and the world - and it's up to us to respond.

Jesus Christ, come to us, for you are the Bread of Life -
Dean