Many churches prepare and serve meals to hungry neighbors, but few church members find it easy to sit and eat with those who need the meal. When people are very different from ourselves, we often find it more comfortable to cook and clean for them than to share in a meal and conversation. We are familiar with roles as helpers but are less certain about being equals eating together. Many of us struggle with simply being present with people in need; our helping roles give definition to the relationship, but they also keep it decidedly hierarchical. As one practitioner observed, eating together is "the most enriching part but also the hardest party. When we were first here it was so hard. We didn't have any specific things to do, just be with people."
- Christine Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality As a Christian Tradition, p. 74
Once a month the members of our church graciously bought food, prepared a meal, served it to the shelter recipients, and cleaned up afterwards. We did everything short of spoon-feeding the men, never asking them to lift a finger in the entire process. A more developmental approach would have sought greater participation of these men in their own rehabilitation, asking them to exercise stewardship as part of the process of beginning to reconcile their key relationships. We could have involved the men every step along the way, from planning the meal, to shopping for the food, to helping with serving and cleanup. We could have done supper with the men, working and eating side by side, rather than giving supper to the men, engaging in a provider-recipient dynamic that likely confirmed our sense of superiority and their sense of inferiority.
- Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves, p. 111
