The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

Sunday dinner was and is as sacred to me as church itself. As the extroverted child in my family, it was special because we rarely ate alone.  Sometimes we went to Grandma Hardee’s, joined by a rotation of my daddy’s seven siblings, each bringing something to share, but that was not the only way we broke bread with others.

We were always among the last few to leave church.  After talking to everyone there, my daddy and a handful of other stalwart members would make sure the church was locked up, and whoever was left would sometimes go to the fish house in the neighboring town to share small talk, church politics, and every other topic under the sun. Sometimes it was the preacher and his family, and sometimes it was other church members, but it was always exciting to me.

My favorite Sunday dinner gathering, however, was when my mama would cook enough to invite new people at the church to our home for lunch.  We lived in a college town, and many young couples hungry for family and food were invited to sit at our table and talk about where they were from and what brought them to the town. We met students and young teachers, and medical professionals. Mama met some of them in the choir, or Daddy met them in Sunday school, but those new faces were always the highlight of Sunday Dinner for me.

So it is not surprising that when I went away to college, I looked for people to eat with after church.  It was at the height of the adopt-a-student movement, and generous people were willing to feed and offer hospitality to all of us who got up and came to church on Sunday mornings. Sometimes when my sister and I would go out to eat in our college town, I would ask for a table for six so that people who came in alone and wanted to join us had a space.

Therefore when I graduated and went to serve as a youth minister several hours from my home, the loneliest time of the week was Sunday Dinner.  I soon created a group to eat lunch together because it was not just a tradition but a touchstone to who I was. An aching memory was being asked to preach for Youth Sunday after only being there for two weeks. I waited for someone to step up and invite me to eat because my daddy would have done that, but no one did. Alone, I wandered across the street to the square to eat at Hardee’s without much appetite and tears streaming down my cheeks. In the previous month, I had graduated, moved to another state, started a new job, and was so lonely.  That memory still lingers all these years later, and that event has shaped my life in many ways.

My husband has picked up the tab for hundreds of students over the years whom I asked if they had lunch plans after church. Sometimes we had ten students at our table. Last week while in NYC for a mission event, the team went to Metro Baptist church, and before we left the building, we had four people who did not know each other come with us to lunch, where Mars Hill Baptist Church picked the cost. I have heard from two of them saying how much they appreciated it.

A new school year is beginning.  New people are moving and starting jobs. In many places, students are moving onto campus. Cultural issues have made Adopt-a-student programs fall on hard times, but the need to meet and connect is still critical. 

Some ways to address the Sunday Dinner connectedness issue:

• Personally, you can expand your already established group that goes to lunch by inviting one or two new additions.  There will be new stories, new wisdom, and added community.
• Ask around if there is interest in forming a group that goes to eat each week, and look for others to invite for Sunday Dinner. (It’s usually the extroverts that are willing, but they are not the only ones who need to be included.)
• If the church adopts the idea, have your pastor announce that there is a group that takes students out to lunch each week, and the hope is that they will join. Also, make it clear that they are welcome any week if they did not plan for it this week.
• And for heaven’s sake, ask someone to invite the visiting preacher, musician, or other invited guest to eat and cover their lunch. That is just good manners.

Add your ideas and share them with us.  Loneliness is an epidemic in our culture.  Let’s reach out beyond our comfortable status and offer an invitation to Sunday Dinner.