“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Matthew 5:13
At Streatham Baptist Church, we run a meal on Wednesday evenings for anyone who wants to come.
It is called The Vine and its purpose is to offer food, connection and community to local people. We play games, have a quiz and all eat a great meal together.
The roots of The Vine are in the night shelter which used to be hosted by seven local churches and closed during the pandemic. We have a wide variety of guests – a few are sleeping rough but most face challenges associated with poverty, isolation and addictions.
Connection
We chose the name The Vine because vines provide food and refreshment and embody connection and unpredictable growth. But also because it is a metaphor Jesus uses about himself in John 15:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.”
When we re-started the meal last year we thought hard about the role that the Christian faith plays in what we offer. We did not want to just provide the resource of food. We wanted to create a place of relationship and connection: to both each other and to God.
Secularising
The community theologian Ann Morisy (another Streatham resident) wrote about the role of spirituality in social action in her influential book Beyond the Good Samaritan published in 1997:
“Community ministry also takes seriously the fact that people have spiritual needs, and if churches do not help people address these needs then few other agencies will. Churches have often been duped by our deeply secular culture into providing welfare for those in need without being clear about how this helps the Church fulfil its primary task. There are other agencies which provide care for those in need, but no other agency other than churches has the task of helping people do business with God.”
She coined the term ‘apt liturgy’ to describe spiritual words and practices which can be used alongside our social and community action. These words need to be appropriate to the context and be shared in the right spiritual temperature – neither ‘too hot nor too cold’.
Liturgy
At The Vine, we have used a brief liturgy which we have printed out on sheets (also available in Polish due to our demographic). Before we eat, we stop and invite everyone to join in with these words if they are happy to do so:
Lord God,
we thank you for bringing us together this evening,
for the food we will share and for those who have prepared it.
May this evening bless each one of us. In Jesus’ name, Amen
And at the close of the evening, just before guests leave, we invite people to say these words:
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
and protect you through the storm.
May He bring you back here rejoicing
once again into our doors. Amen
There is nothing ground-breaking in these prayers and they only take a brief moment to say, but they play a very significant role in the feel of each evening.
Depth
The prayers provides a time of pause, reflection and a focus for collective gratitude. They also provide a sense of mutuality because everyone says the prayer as equals before God. And somehow, the liturgy provides a sense of ‘depth’ to the whole evening. These collective prayers change the room.
It is great to share food together but we know that material things are only part of the answer to the challenges many of our guests face. As a church, we feel the best thing we can offer is the opportunity to ‘do business with God’ within the context of a loving community.
Confidence
Those involved in Christian social action need more confidence in the relevance of faith to the issues our communities are struggling with. But the practical integrating of overt expressions of faith alongside social action requires conviction and creativity. There are many, both outside and within the church, who will voice negativity and nervousness.
Of course, we need to avoid being crass or coercive, especially when working with vulnerable people. But ‘apt liturgies’ are one example of how we can integrate faith in ways which enhance the practical help we offer. To quote Ann Morisy again:
“Far from being a psychological disaster areas, as many secularists hypothesize, liturgy is one of the most profound, as well as convivial, activities known to humankind. Involvement in some form of liturgy, regardless of how short and simple, enables people to understand themselves better and to appreciate their place in the world.”
Stomachs and hearts
One evidence which supports this is that we have to keep printing off more prayer sheets at The Vine because our guests so regularly take them away. This week, one guest asked if he could take copies in both English and Polish!
Its a small sign of the spiritual needs that faith in action can address. The ‘salt’ of faith both preserves and enhances flavour. And as well as leaving with full stomachs, we also want our guests to leave our church with something of the hope of Christ in their hearts.
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Grace + Truth 
Thank you fir sharing. Gives me (spiritual) food to consider
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thanks Miranda!
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It’s a real issue as we’re always trying to avoid the bread bible approach. We had the same question with the Saturday homeless lunch and offered prayers like yours but because we are in the more catholic tradition we also offered a Eucharist for anyone who wanted to attend – some did. Physical food and spiritual food both on offer
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thanks Guy. Yes, I think the more sacramental traditions can offer something extra in that way – Eucharist can be so powerful and transcend the focus on words and concepts. In a care home for people with chronic alcohol addiction, at Christmas we used to use Christingles and these worked brilliantly for a similar reason – there was something visceral about them which really worked well.
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The links don’t always work. Morris
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Hi Morris – do you mean the hyperlinks in the article or the ‘link’ between social action and faith don’t always work? If its the former, could you let me know which ones – and if you mean the latter, I (sadly) agree!
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The ‘read more’ link.
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