An invitation to come to the table can be warm and welcoming. Often it means someone has prepared a meal for us to enjoy. For me, the idea of coming to the table has taken on new significance over the past six years.

Whenever I have moved to a new church I have made it a practice to be involved in the ecumenical ministerial association in the area. A little over a year after I moved to Hickory, North Carolina, a group of ministers committed to spending several weeks together going through a study from Sojourners entitled “Christianity and Racial Justice.” When the study was completed, some of us decided we wanted to continue coming to the table. Friendships were being deepened. We were learning to look at the world through the lens of others.

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