Suppers Archive

Questions

• Is the notion of societal decline a different way of talking about the human condition?
• Do you think apocalypse and hope are related? Why or why not?
• What kind of tools or practices or attitudes do you find most helpful when it feels like things
  are falling apart?
• What figures or events in history do you look to most for hope?
• Does Jesus Christ inhabiting our flesh and world change anything about this conversation? If it does, how does it?

Recommended Essays

1. “Building a Future in the Face of the Apocalypse” by Jonathan Askonas (Download guide)
2. “The Possibilities and Perils of Populism” by Skylar Adleta (Download guide)

Dinner

We recommend these Rwandan Brochettes, made with either lamb or goat meat.

Questions

• When you hear the word “home,” do you think of the past, the present, or the future?
• Do you associate home more with loss or with belonging? What aspect is primary in your experience?
• What forces in our society are pulling us away from our sense of home? What forces are drawing us toward it?
• In what ways is home something we should seek, and in what ways is it something we should forsake?
• Is the topic of home political? Why or why not?

Dinner

We recommend these Rwandan Brochettes, made with either lamb or goat meat.

Questions

• What forms does violence tend to take in North American society?
• What are the most pervasive forms of non-physical violence in North American society?
• Is violence ever justified, or is it always evil?
• What is the relationship between violence and authority?
• Why do love and grace so often provoke violence?

Discussion Guides

• “Why We Cancel” by April Lawson 
• “Mutual Endangerment Society” by Leah Libresco Sargeant

Dinner

Maybe try a wild game stew, or if you’re looking for something less violent, this red lentil curry is delicious.

Questions

• When you hear the word “church”, what do you think of?
• If you have a picture of “the ideal church” in your head, what informs that picture?
• What do you think makes covenantal commitments so hard today?
• When you reflect on Jesus’s words to his disciples in his final moments before being betrayed
  and crucified, what moves you most? Is there something for us to pay particular attention to as we discern the call of the church in our own time?

Discussion Guides

• “How Not to Be a Schismatic” by Jeff Reimer
• “The Silent Revival” by Aryana Petrosky

Dinner

This chicken chili with lime and avocado is a crowd favourite, every time.

Questions

• How has your conception of gender changed over your life? Over the last decade? Over the last year? How has it stayed the same?
• How is it that all sides in the gender wars see themselves as embattled and oppressed? What is the dynamic that causes that mindset?
• What does healthy masculinity look like? What about healthy femininity? What examples of them have you experienced in your life?
• What positive aspects of your own gender do you feel you’ve brought to bear in a healthy way on your life’s vocations and roles?
• In what ways is gender rooted in biology? In what ways is it not?
• In what ways does your religious tradition help or enhance discussions around gender? In what ways does it make them more difficult?

Discussion Guides

• “What Men Are For” by Richard Reeves
• “Can Feminism and Evangelical Christianity Coexist?” by Miranda Kennedy

Dinner

We recommend Sesame Chicken with Cashews and Dates paired with De Wetshof Limestone Hill Chardonnay.

Questions

• Where do you fall on the top-down versus bottom-up question of social change? Why?
• Is conversion–whether individual or societal–more about fulfillment or overthrow?
• Does online life change the nature of your relationships or just foreground your desire for connection?
• How does the concept of
 “spiritual motherhood” strike you? Can you recall a time when you’ve been the beneficiary of its logic?
• What broad cultural shift has been hardest on you over the last decade? Conversely, is there one that has eased the way for greater faithfulness?

Dinner

We recommend a Spring Vegetable Gnocchi paired with Domaine de l’Aumonier, Touraine, Sauvignon Blanc. 

Questions

• What types of experiences draw you to wonder? What inhibits it?
• Is humanity a quantifiable thing? Have you ever had a time when you felt fully human?
• Have you ever refused to do something because you feel it diminishes your, or someone else’s, humanity?
• Is suffering intrinsic to being human? Why or why not?
• How do you talk to your children about what sex is and is for? If you don’t have kids, how do you think you would talk to them about it?
• What practices can help us recognize and value the humanity of those with whom we radically disagree?

Dinner

This bold and delicious Moqueca Baiana (Brazilian fish stew) cooks up in less than thirty minutes.

Questions

• How do you define friendship?
• What makes good boundaries in friendship?
• Would you ever consider formalizing a friendship in any way? For what reason(s)?
• Can friendship be made into a political policy?
• Do you find friendship to be an aid to creativity or a hindrance? Or both?
• Do you welcome “brutal friends”? Reflect on a time when you were grateful for a friend’s correction.
• Has a friendship ever cost you?

Dinner

We have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love these Banh Mi Bowls.

Questions

• How many dimensions do you feel your life has at present? What are they?
• Which sphere seems most abnegated today? What does our common life lose as a result? What would it take to reactivate it?
• What examples of healthy cross-pollination have you observed in our public life today? Where have norms been blurred or switched in unhealthy ways?
• What has had more of a formative influence on your loves and commitments: spheres or “scenes”?
• What sources do you go to for greater integration between head, heart, and helping hand? What additional sources could you try?
• Where do the communities in your life overlap? Where do you wish they would or wouldn’t?

Dinner

Break your Lenten fasts and celebrate the spheres with Crêpes Suzette.