I’m so happy to have found your Substack! I have been hosting what I have called Liturgical Living Supper Club events with people from my church community for a couple years now. It’s great to find other folks doing similar things and to see what else people are doing and how.
I use the GroupMe app and it has worked really well for creating and sharing events. People can rsvp and it also allows us to communicate amongst ourselves to get an idea for what folks are planning on bringing or what is needed. (We do potluck style for our gatherings, like you.) I also can share a few pics afterward on the GroupMe event page and thank people.
So far we have established a Liturgical New Year’s Eve game night that ends with sparklers, an Epiphany Ball Contra Dance, a Michaelmas Harvest Feast, and a Pentecost Picnic and Bonfire.
I love your idea of sharing a Pinterest board for people to get a feel for the feast. Judging by your pics, you seem to get people participating in the theme a bit better - maybe the Pinterest board is the trick!
How much do you do to really solidify and connect in the religious aspect of your feast celebrations? Do your participants sing readily? Or do you pray any traditional prayers together? Or is it just you talking about the feast?
My husband and I are not naturally leaders or public speakers, and I have tried to just put the event on and let it speak for itself. I do wonder if there’s a need for the connections to be stated more clearly somehow? For example, for Michaelmas we just called it the Michaelmas feast, had a statue of St Michael as the centerpiece on the table and a devil piñata, prayed the St Michael prayer with the meal blessing, but we didn’t give any speech about how it all connects. Curious what thoughts you have. ☺️
Hi Elly - it’s so lovely to find another kindred spirit! Thank you so much for your thoughtful note and for sharing about your fantastic supper club…your group sounds like SO much fun, and so enlivening for everyone involved!!
I’ve not heard of the GroupMe app but will have to peek at that - what a great idea! I’m sure that helps a lot with coordination. I’ve used SignUp Genius a few times, but it just didn’t stick for us - I personally often don’t know what I’m making until the day-of, and though most of our gatherings end up with a great variety of food, once in a blue moon, the meal will definitely lean heavy on the apps or desserts! 😅
Like you, I’m also not naturally a public speaker or leader. In general, I like for these gatherings to speak for themselves - I see them as para-liturgical, helping to flesh out our faith lives in the context of popular piety…this helps me to remove the pressure of trying to facilitate the praying of a divine office, etc. Our group is super ecumenical, and the traditions tend to be the vehicles that connect us all in surprising ways.
Sometimes, we’ll sing a hymn - but for the most part, the catechetical elements are a blessing before our meal (I like to ask a kiddo to lead us in prayer - usually, we use a Collect, or I’ll find something in my Catholic Rural Life Prayer Book), then our shared meal, and then I introduce the feast we’re celebrating and provide some more context. With the vast age range, though, I keep that talk super duper short…just a few minutes, really, helps to pull a few connections together, and then there’s more one-on-one chatting as we move to our activity. It works out well for me, since I don’t naturally thrive when speaking in large groups. ;)
I have a bit more about the cadence of our gatherings in my little ebook:
Though I think drawing in the connections explicitly is certainly helpful, I’m a BIG believer in the hidden power of saturation - when we facilitate the atmosphere for a liturgical celebration, some memories are made that will often crop up later. I’ve had some friends (who were previously very unexposed to the Church calendar) say things like, “Something about having dinner in the meadow tonight is reminding me of blessing a field last year…I think there were kites? Was it St. Mark’s Day?” Or kids will refer back to “that feast where they ate the watermelon,” then have their memory jogged to recall St. Bartholomew.
In other words, by exposure to the tastes, temperature, and other physical memories, I think seeds of catechesis are planted and will flourish later. I’m sure your Michaelmas centerpiece & pinata are having lasting effects beyond what we could measure! Pulling in just a quick teaching is always helpful if possible, but this all sounds so beautiful and nourishing.
(I’d love to hear more, sometime, if you’d like to share!)
I love everything about this. The ache of our hearts (my husband and I) is to have a home one day, not to mention property, where we can host such gatherings. I have always loved not just entertaining but true hospitality — which is of course possible wherever we show up. But there is something uniquely special about having space to invite others into. Our currently apartment is only 700-square-feet though I have lived on my own in larger homes in the past, and both of us grew up in rural communities on acreage. It's a clunky season, but this was a good challenge to start tiny and see how God grows it. I'm always thinking about third spaces too. We have some local parks that might be good options. I have also hosted in an empty nester's home and at church.
I'm so glad this hit home with you, Bailey - and I feel your struggle, that's an incredibly tight/cozy space! I used to live in a studio apartment, and getting creative about hospitality was tough. I remember hosting a couple of events at my old college campus just to have a bit of extra breathing room.
Though living on the farm gives us SO much outdoor space, I used to feel like we couldn't possibly host inside our home...it's around 1600 square feet, housing two adults, three kids, a dog, and cats. Once we add more people into that mixture, we're overflowing. When I first started trying to host here (for a Bible study a million years ago), I was so self-conscious - I wanted to find a way to seat everyone at the dining table (it's just not possible), the dog kept taking up the cozy chairs, getting in and out of our entryway is a single-file affair, a line forms for the bathroom, and if two people are in the kitchen it's impossible to open the oven or the fridge. 🤣 (And, of course, I feel incredibly privileged and fortunate to be where we are and to have a safe, beautiful home).
I share all that just to say...adapting to this mindset of hosting "even though" has been a process evolving over years! Our local library was the host to a few gatherings at some point, too, before I decided to just open the door and release the mayhem. 😅
I’m so happy to have found your Substack! I have been hosting what I have called Liturgical Living Supper Club events with people from my church community for a couple years now. It’s great to find other folks doing similar things and to see what else people are doing and how.
I use the GroupMe app and it has worked really well for creating and sharing events. People can rsvp and it also allows us to communicate amongst ourselves to get an idea for what folks are planning on bringing or what is needed. (We do potluck style for our gatherings, like you.) I also can share a few pics afterward on the GroupMe event page and thank people.
So far we have established a Liturgical New Year’s Eve game night that ends with sparklers, an Epiphany Ball Contra Dance, a Michaelmas Harvest Feast, and a Pentecost Picnic and Bonfire.
I love your idea of sharing a Pinterest board for people to get a feel for the feast. Judging by your pics, you seem to get people participating in the theme a bit better - maybe the Pinterest board is the trick!
How much do you do to really solidify and connect in the religious aspect of your feast celebrations? Do your participants sing readily? Or do you pray any traditional prayers together? Or is it just you talking about the feast?
My husband and I are not naturally leaders or public speakers, and I have tried to just put the event on and let it speak for itself. I do wonder if there’s a need for the connections to be stated more clearly somehow? For example, for Michaelmas we just called it the Michaelmas feast, had a statue of St Michael as the centerpiece on the table and a devil piñata, prayed the St Michael prayer with the meal blessing, but we didn’t give any speech about how it all connects. Curious what thoughts you have. ☺️
Hi Elly - it’s so lovely to find another kindred spirit! Thank you so much for your thoughtful note and for sharing about your fantastic supper club…your group sounds like SO much fun, and so enlivening for everyone involved!!
I’ve not heard of the GroupMe app but will have to peek at that - what a great idea! I’m sure that helps a lot with coordination. I’ve used SignUp Genius a few times, but it just didn’t stick for us - I personally often don’t know what I’m making until the day-of, and though most of our gatherings end up with a great variety of food, once in a blue moon, the meal will definitely lean heavy on the apps or desserts! 😅
Like you, I’m also not naturally a public speaker or leader. In general, I like for these gatherings to speak for themselves - I see them as para-liturgical, helping to flesh out our faith lives in the context of popular piety…this helps me to remove the pressure of trying to facilitate the praying of a divine office, etc. Our group is super ecumenical, and the traditions tend to be the vehicles that connect us all in surprising ways.
Sometimes, we’ll sing a hymn - but for the most part, the catechetical elements are a blessing before our meal (I like to ask a kiddo to lead us in prayer - usually, we use a Collect, or I’ll find something in my Catholic Rural Life Prayer Book), then our shared meal, and then I introduce the feast we’re celebrating and provide some more context. With the vast age range, though, I keep that talk super duper short…just a few minutes, really, helps to pull a few connections together, and then there’s more one-on-one chatting as we move to our activity. It works out well for me, since I don’t naturally thrive when speaking in large groups. ;)
I have a bit more about the cadence of our gatherings in my little ebook:
https://www.hearthstonefables.com/p/liturgical-life-groups
Though I think drawing in the connections explicitly is certainly helpful, I’m a BIG believer in the hidden power of saturation - when we facilitate the atmosphere for a liturgical celebration, some memories are made that will often crop up later. I’ve had some friends (who were previously very unexposed to the Church calendar) say things like, “Something about having dinner in the meadow tonight is reminding me of blessing a field last year…I think there were kites? Was it St. Mark’s Day?” Or kids will refer back to “that feast where they ate the watermelon,” then have their memory jogged to recall St. Bartholomew.
In other words, by exposure to the tastes, temperature, and other physical memories, I think seeds of catechesis are planted and will flourish later. I’m sure your Michaelmas centerpiece & pinata are having lasting effects beyond what we could measure! Pulling in just a quick teaching is always helpful if possible, but this all sounds so beautiful and nourishing.
(I’d love to hear more, sometime, if you’d like to share!)
We have a monthly liturgical potluck in Western Mass - I would be happy to give contact information to be included in a regional contact list!
Lovely!! Thank you so much, Kyndra! I’ll reach out soon with details :)
Also - Paging @Elizabeth
Ah, yes! Hi @Kyndra Ferguson Steinmann! We just connected at the CMNE conference!
Ah! That's why your face looked familiar! I'm so bad at connecting people from one context to another!
I love everything about this. The ache of our hearts (my husband and I) is to have a home one day, not to mention property, where we can host such gatherings. I have always loved not just entertaining but true hospitality — which is of course possible wherever we show up. But there is something uniquely special about having space to invite others into. Our currently apartment is only 700-square-feet though I have lived on my own in larger homes in the past, and both of us grew up in rural communities on acreage. It's a clunky season, but this was a good challenge to start tiny and see how God grows it. I'm always thinking about third spaces too. We have some local parks that might be good options. I have also hosted in an empty nester's home and at church.
I'm so glad this hit home with you, Bailey - and I feel your struggle, that's an incredibly tight/cozy space! I used to live in a studio apartment, and getting creative about hospitality was tough. I remember hosting a couple of events at my old college campus just to have a bit of extra breathing room.
Though living on the farm gives us SO much outdoor space, I used to feel like we couldn't possibly host inside our home...it's around 1600 square feet, housing two adults, three kids, a dog, and cats. Once we add more people into that mixture, we're overflowing. When I first started trying to host here (for a Bible study a million years ago), I was so self-conscious - I wanted to find a way to seat everyone at the dining table (it's just not possible), the dog kept taking up the cozy chairs, getting in and out of our entryway is a single-file affair, a line forms for the bathroom, and if two people are in the kitchen it's impossible to open the oven or the fridge. 🤣 (And, of course, I feel incredibly privileged and fortunate to be where we are and to have a safe, beautiful home).
I share all that just to say...adapting to this mindset of hosting "even though" has been a process evolving over years! Our local library was the host to a few gatherings at some point, too, before I decided to just open the door and release the mayhem. 😅