For all who hunger Searching for communion in a shattered world

Emily M. D. Scott

Book - 2020

"Emily Scott never planned on becoming a pastor. But when she started a church for misfits that met over dinner in Brooklyn, she discovered an unlikely calling-and an antidote to modern loneliness. As founding pastor of St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York, where worship takes place over a meal, Emily Scott spent eight years ministering to a scrappy collective of people with different backgrounds, incomes, and levels of social skills. Each week they broke bread, sang hymns, made halting conversation with strangers, then did the dishes. But in a city where everyone lives on top of one another yet everyone is lonely, these gatherings filled a longing that most people-even Scott-didn't realize they felt. With tenderness and humor, ...Scott weaves stories and reflections from the life of her unlikely congregation. Recalling her journey as a single woman and a pastor looking for love and friendship in a city of millions, she discovers how small acts of connection hold more power than we realize in a time when our differences are being weaponized, and creates activism and justice work fueled by empathy and relationship. For All Who Hunger articulates the value of church as a place where people can hear not only that they are loved but that they are good. When members of Scott's congregation build relationships with their neighbors in one of the world's most unequal cities, they find courage and resources to begin working for a more just world. For All Who Hunger is a story about a God whose love has no limits and a faith that opens our eyes to the truth. There's a place for you at the table."--

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Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Convergent [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Emily M. D. Scott (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
x, 233 pages ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-233).
ISBN
9780593135570
  • Prologue: Communion
  • I. Creation
  • Womb
  • Quickening
  • Fear and Trembling
  • II. Enough
  • Cardboard Wings
  • Three Miracles
  • Lost Things
  • III. Justice
  • Deep Waters
  • Good Fridays
  • Empty Tombs
  • IV. Resurrection
  • Broken Bread
  • Distant Seas
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
Review by Booklist Review

How do we worship God and love others when the world is harsh and fragmented? And how does a person have the guts to embody such love in New York City? These questions guide pastor and first-time author Scott, who, with early support from an Episcopalian pastor and backing from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, envisioned and formed "dinner church" with a friend. Following the practice of early Christians, they founded St. Lydia's, a new kind of church centered on a meal, where everyone contributes to the process and to the worship that follows. Scott recounts the early struggles to build St. Lydia's membership, pay bills, and to minister to her small band of congregants. There are challenges, but there is also a lot of hope. When, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastates the New York coast, the focus of St. Lydia's shifts. People in a nearby Gowanus housing project continue to suffer long after the hurricane subsides, and Scott and her congregation begin to work for justice in their neighborhood. Scott's theology is practical, leavened with grace and humor, and this would make a great next read for fans of Rachel Held Evans and Nadia Bolz-Weber.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Lutheran pastor Scott asks in her exceptional debut: if you strip from church all "the creeds and the chasubles," what would be left? The answer, for her, became St. Lydia's Dinner Church in New York City, which she founded in 2008 as a place for queer, marginalized, artistic, nerdy, and often lonely lovers of God to gather for bread, wine, and the words of Jesus. At Scott's "dinner church," everyone is involved in cooking and cleaning, and whoever arrives is provided with "holy food for holy people," as Scott likes to put it. She details daily foibles and moments of inspiration that come with working with her congregation, including early years when she conducted services in a friend's apartment, Christmas caroling adventures, and establishing a permanent home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Scott's writing is leavened by a healthy dose of self-awareness, and her stories capture the humanity of her mission and community with a light sacramental touch, focusing mostly on the joy and solidarity found in the shared space. Fine observations ("We are holy not because we are good but because we are loved") and the terrific use of quotes from Joy Harjo, Pablo Neruda, and Flannery O'Connor guide readers through Scott's life within the church. Those who delight in the voices of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Katie Hayes, and Rachel Held Evans will welcome this powerful work. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Scott, a Lutheran pastor and founder of the Brooklyn-based congregation St. Lydia's Dinner Church, explores the power of communal worship meals in this memoir. At St. Lydia's, she began a "dinner church" without funding or a congregation. During those first eight years, the struggles and lessons the parishioners learn transformed the author herself. In her words, "this is a story about how bread, broken and passed from hand to hand, rescued me from my aloneness." Throughout, Scott explores vignettes of real life shared over meals that bring hope, healing, and most of all, connectedness in a fractured world, as St. Lydia's itself becomes a place fighting first for survival and then for social justice. Scott finishes the book recounting her departure from St. Lydia's Brooklyn "to travel an unknown path" that includes the memories and friendships formed over broken bread. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoy Nadia Bolz-Weber, Anne Lamott, or Brian McClaren. A thought-provoking and inspiring memoir that reflects real-life frustrations and fears, while hope ultimately prevails in the end.--Ray Arnett, Anderson, SC

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The founding pastor of St. Lydia's dinner church in Brooklyn reflects on her eight years ministering to a progressive, diverse, and LGBTQ--affirming congregation. In this intimate and openly heartfelt debut memoir, Scott explores the power of faith and community as strength-building resources for navigating difficult times. The author recalls her efforts in forming a unique church setting that aspired to welcome a diverse community and offer unconventional means of worship: sharing meals around a dinner table. At first, Scott tested her vision at temporary venues throughout the city, with small groups of worshippers, before landing a permanent location in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn. Throughout the book, the author shares stories of the assorted individuals who were drawn to St. Lydia's and their unified quest to meaningfully connect with the needs of their neighborhood, including the nearby public housing units. Pivotal experiences--e.g., Hurricane Sandy and the police shootings of unarmed black youths--motivated them toward direct social action within their community, serving to further bolster their ties as a congregation. Scott's intimately transparent voice and reflections on faith are what drive her compelling narrative. Throughout, she references scriptural texts and offers enlightened interpretation of the individual stories. She's equally relatable and forthright in exposing her own vulnerabilities and loneliness as a single woman living in the city along with her responsibilities and insecurities ministering to the needs of her congregants. "This is a story about how bread, broken and passed from hand to hand, rescued me from my aloneness," she writes. "Perhaps you've been alone as well, and need to be reminded that, despite all evidence to the contrary, your aloneness will not last forever. When I think of what our church made together, I think of those small beacons of light reminding you that even if you haven't found it yet, there is a shore somewhere, and you won't drown in these depths." Scott delivers a moving personal memoir and an accessibly reverent meditation on finding faith through unconventional acts of worship. Highly inspiring for anyone seeking solace in our modern world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

I became a Lutheran pastor against my will. I never really meant to.   "How did you decide to become a minister?" someone asks me. My hairdresser as she captures portions of dampened hair between comb and blade; a friend of a friend at a party as she smiles and smooths her boyfriend's dress shirt; the young seminarian who looks up at me with wide open eyes, hoping to catch sight of her own illuminated future.   My heart curls inward, like a crustacean receding into its shell. It's a simple question, completely innocent, yet it seems impossible to answer.   "God made me do it" are the words that usually flash through my mind. I don't say them out loud, though. They taste too bitter in my mouth for casual conversation. Usually I smile, lips pressed together, and say something like "That's a long story," and wonder how I might manage to explain.   At gatherings of Lutheran clergy, I don't fit in. I am young, I am female, I am not married, I do not have children. There are some younger clergy and women scattered through our assembly, but the majority of Lutheran pastors are men who were ordained decades ago. They all seem larger than I am, delivering strong handshakes to one another, inquiring about wives, and cracking loud jokes. Har har har. They wear their clerical collars with ease, as if born into the uniform. With black suits and white collars, they mingle like a colony of penguins in a huddle.   I know a lot of these men. Many of them have welcomed and affirmed me, offering words of encouragement and resources to share. They are kind. I like them. But when they're all assembled together, it's clear I'm out of place. I've wandered into the wrong zoo exhibit, a small bird with unruly plumage. My heart starts racing beneath my garish feathers.   St. Lydia's, the church I founded and for the last seven years served as pastor, is a convention of odd birds. Each of us would be wholly out of place wandering through the doors of a clapboard, steepled church. Most of us are younger than the average church-attending Christian by at least twenty years. Many of us are single, many of us are Queer. We are the kids who hung out in the art room long after the bell rang but flunked out of algebra. Or maybe we earned a 4.0 but carried a constant yearning for something different, something far away, which brought us to this city of a million lights and hard realities. Our congregants are quirky and earnest, pouring themselves into graduate school or tugging at the threads of theological questions. They don't believe being gay is a sin anymore, like their pastor told them when they were kids. But what does the Bible say about it? they want to know. Ultimately, the thing that ties us all together, I guess, is that most of us got beat up in middle school, or narrowly avoided it. *** At dinner, a congregant passes me a full bowl of soup. I scan the three tables to make sure there's someone at each with enough social skills to keep the conversation going. We've had trouble with this. The most confident Dinner Church participants tend to arrive later and end up seated at the table closest to the door. Soon they'll be guffawing loudly at a joke somebody's cracked while at the table where I'm seated, near the kitchen, we sputter and lurch through small talk. Somewhere along the line, St. Lydia's got the reputation for being a hipster church. "Oh, yeah, the cool church," people would say to my colleague, Julia, or me when they ran into us at church events. Sometimes their words carried a hint of dismissal. Perhaps they imagined that St. Lydia's was a boutique ministry geared only toward the privileged. Or that we were unwelcoming of anyone who didn't ride a fixed-gear bike or have a mustache. Julia and I always reported these stories back to one another with incredulous laughter. "Let me assure you," we'd tell them if we got the chance, "there's nothing about it that's cool." Sprinkled around these tables are geeks and geniuses, fools and misfits. Some of us have done a better job than others of climbing our way into something that might be identified as "success" in work or life. And now here we are, stumbling our way through dinner conversation that is the opposite of refined or easy. My table struggles along. There's a computer programmer visiting for the first time who blushes whenever someone makes eye contact with him. Harrison bounces around from shelter to shelter, and always has a long story to impart; two Lutheran pastors visiting from Des Moines listen, nodding. Malika sits across from me, listening with focused patience to Gerry, a retired electrician whose pants are held aloft with a set of elastic rainbow suspenders, as he describes the technical details of a recent repair. Next to me, the new computer programmer and his tablemate have lapsed into a weighted silence that seems likely never to end. They sip their soup, staring straight ahead. Across the room at the rowdy table, Jason, an affable engineer with a head of curly hair, leans close to Ula in her wheelchair, trying to understand what she's saying. She had a stroke a few years ago and finds it hard to string words together. She is also hard of hearing, so Jason is forced to lean close to her wheelchair and yell. "WHAT DID THE DOCTORS SAY ABOUT YOUR MAMMOGRAM?" he shouts. The scene elicits a familiar feeling for me: 49 percent flight reflex, 51 percent tenderness. A not-insignificant portion of me wants to run out the door. But keeping me in my seat is a warm wash of love for the people in this room. My congregants are often exasperating, unbelievably generous, reliably surprising, and very dear to me. And they keep coming back to do something that isn't all that easy--make halting conversation with a stranger--because there is something at these tables that is more important than being cool.   ***   I think often of Jonah, God's reluctant prophet who tried to run everywhere but the place he was being sent. "Go to Nineveh," God said. It was a simple instruction, yet Jonah balked. "Tarshish," Jonah says to himself. "I'll go there!" It's like deciding to lie low in Pittsburgh, or Boise. "Yes, that's the answer. Tarshish will be just right." But it was not just right. God did not say Tarshish, God said Nineveh. So Jonah ends up getting dumped over the side of a ship, swallowed by a giant fish, and, eventually, spat out onto the beach, putrid and soaking. All of that before he'll agree to just go to Nineveh and speak the words God's given him. We all do our kicking and screaming. Christians have this strange notion of a "call," which means doing things that don't sound too appealing. If God had said to me, "Movest thou unto New York City, and startest thou a Dinner Church with no funding, no training, and no paycheck," I would have started looking around for road signs to Tarshish. Generally, our call makes us want to run like hell in the opposite direction. But there's also something about these "calls" that won't let us go. Something alluring and compelling and a little intoxicating that we can't help responding to, despite our best intentions and the flutter of fear. I need everyone together around one table. It's the only thing that makes me whole. And so, despite my trepidation, I kept taking step after step to bring a church into being. "Why did you decide to become a pastor?" a friend of a friend, perfectly coiffed, asks as she takes a sip from her cocktail glass at a party we're both attending. I didn't decide , I wish I could say. It wasn't a choice. Excerpted from For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World by Emily M. D. Scott All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.