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Pull Up A Chair

The center of the universe is hard to find.
My family’s universe, that is.

You must first travel to central Iowa and head east on Highway 30 until you get to Grand Junction. Take 144 north for another ten miles. You’ll see the baby blue Paton water tower from miles away. Then right past the ancient graveyard, filled with my ancestors, you’ll take a left onto 130th Street.  You’ve arrived in Paton, Iowa.

Paton is a small town — population 250. A cornstalk sea surrounds it like a green swaying moat. My grandmother’s home, a brick house white-washed
so many times that it looks stucco, sits on a corner overlooking the town’s
only park.

Once you enter my grandmother’s home, you’ll probably smell fresh-baked cookies, apple pie or some other mouth-watering dessert. In the middle of her home is the dining room and in that dining room is the center of our universe.

The old round oak table has been in our family for 70 years. It was hand-cut and carved by my grandfather and his brother shortly before he married my grandmother. How something so beautiful has stood the test of time is a marvel. It can seat almost twenty people with all the leaves in place.

This table has been the meeting place for our family for seven generations. Life, death, marriage, divorce, poverty and wealth — all have been discussed over this oaken board. Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, poker games, domino matches, quilting clubs, farmers’ meetings, city business deals, and decisions that have affected the lives of many, have happened in these chairs.

This is the place where anyone (stranger, vagrant, wanderer, family — young, old, enemy and friend alike) can pull up a chair and join a multi-generational conversation. Commune with us at this table and you may become part of
the family.

I bet you have a “table story” of your own. Our lives revolve around tables. They are places of gathering, of community.

Tables are also important to God. The Gospels are filled with stories that revolve around tables.  Christ’s final sermon in the Upper Room reminds us that we are all called to the Table. (The word “communion” sounds suspiciously like “community.”) 

Over the next six weeks (July 31-September 4), you’re invited to pull up a chair and join us at the table of community. What does it mean to be a part of a life-giving community? What is our responsibility within a community? What are obstacles and challenges to expect within the context of community? What does the community of Christ look like? And, what’s the point, after all?

We hope you’ll join us for the next six weeks. Your seat is saved.

Pull Up a Chair
Community at IBC

July 31
Community Matters

August 7
Fitting In

August 14
Sticking Around

August 21
When It’s Tough

August 28
The Real Reason

September 4
It’s Worth It

Join us Sundays in the Worship Center at 9 a.m., 10:45 a.m., or 5 p.m. 

For podcasts or live webcasts of the IBC Teaching Series, please visit media.irvingbible.org.