"Come And Eat" - a review

"Come and Eat" by Bri McKoy

"What if there is more power in the simple invitation than we can even begin to fathom?"

"It's about discovering that perhaps before we invite people to meet Jesus at church or at Christian events, we should invite them to meet Him at our table."

These two quotes from the book "Come & Eat," by Bri McKoy, really sum up the book  The idea is that when we take the time to break bread with someone, we have the opportunity to not just feed their body, but to feed their soul.


Now I want to add the caveat, that we're not talking about tacking a salvation message to the end of every meal that we invite people to, or that we use a shared meal as a place to beat people with the Gospel message.  No, what Bri is encouraging and I am longing for is a place where we can share a meal and share ourselves with no pretense or expectations.  

I work in medical research, and I work on a floor with a large number of Chinese, and I have had the honor and the privilege to share meals with them, both at work and outside of work.  I consider it an honor when they include me in their meals - even when we're all just eating what we packed for the day.  We often talk about American and Chinese culture or food  and sometimes the conversations around me are in Chinese, but I am still honored to be there.

Getting to know these people, and getting to eat with them, reminds me of my childhood.  So many of my favorite childhood memories center around food.  I started making cornbread at my grandparents' house when I was still short enough that I had to stand on a stool.  I think back fondly on sitting at the "kids" table at holidays with my sister and our two cousins.

Food draws us together, to some extent it defines who we are, and when we invite people to dine with us, we have the opportunity to get to know them better than if we were doing something else.  And it is in this getting to know people that the Lord may reveal how we can minister to them.

This book has really made me think.  And it has made me so thankful for the tables that the Lord has brought me to over the years.  This book will make you laugh, and it will make you cry.  And you will never look at a simple invitation to dine the same way again.

"We sit at these tables because these are the tables Jesus sat at.  The tables holding wounded peopel with raw, breaking hearts.  God seats us at these tables to be used by Him as a healing balm, but he also seats us there to bring us into contact with our own brokenness."  ~Bri McKoy


#ComeandEatMovement