Hey COTC,

Please read this week's e-news reflection from Fr Jonathan, below but first a few reminders:

1. Saturday night, Mike Greer is hosting a men's hangout at his home in Crestview. If you're a dude and you want to hangout and meet some new people, be sure to RSVP to Mike.

2. Sunday, 7/16, is the last day to sign up for Share the Table. COTC has grown A LOT in the last year and this is a great way to meet people. Be sure to sign up by end of the day on 7/16 and hosts will be in touch with you about details before the 23rd.

Peace,
Kimberly+

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A couple of weeks ago COTC’s Bilingual Missional Community put on our first neighborhood community dinner in St. John’s. There was a mish-mash of cuisines and cultural backgrounds: Venezuelans, Nigerians, Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, and Mexicans. There was a lot of using the Google translate app. Kids who didn’t speak each other's languages connected around a soccer ball and an ever-crashing game of Jenga. It was both beautiful and chaotic. 

Hospitality, of course, is a key Biblical principle and mandate which we talk about often at COTC. Hebrews 13:1-2, for example, talks about treating strangers like family with an awareness that you might be welcoming angels in your home. But it’s interesting that Jesus Himself didn’t practice a lot of hospitality in the way we might think. He didn’t even have a home to invite people into. Rather, he was constantly inviting himself over to other people’s homes and eating at their tables. Particularly those of sinners and outcasts. He asks the Samaritan Woman for water. He tells Zacheus he’s going to his home. 

A key component of mutuality is both the extending of hospitality and receiving it from others. It involves both sharing your gifts as well as creating space to receive the gifts of others, especially from those often thought of as having nothing to give. It is entering into life on someone else’s terms: eating their food, sitting at their table, following their customs and traditions. It can be hard and downright awkward at times. But it is the way of the Kingdom and of joy. 

What would it look like for COTC to both be a people that welcomed in the poor, the crippled, the lame (Lk. 14:13) to our tables and who also practiced regular eating at the tables of those different from us in language, culture, race, or background?

Jonathan+