For All Who Hunger (eBook)

Emily Scott never planned on becoming a pastor. But when she started achurchformisfits that met over dinner in Brooklyn, she discoveredanunlikely callingand an antidote to modern loneliness.';I absolutely devoured this exquisitely written memoir.'Nadia Bolz-Weber,New York Timesbestselling author ofShamelessAs founding pastor of St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York, where worshiptakes place over a meal, Emily M. D. Scott spent eight years ministeringto a scrappy collective of people with different backgrounds, incomes,and levels of social skills. Each week they broke bread, sang hymns,madehalting conversation with strangers, then did the dishes. In a city where everyone lives on top of each other yet everyone is lonely, these gatherings around a table offered connection and solace that soon would become their lifelines. When Hurricane Sandy slams into the coast of New York, Scott and her church members are faced with a disorienting crisis.Startled by the impact of the storm on their more vulnerable neighbors, they learn to work alongside one another, bailing water out of basements and canvassing emptied apartment buildings.Every week, they return to those steady, strong tables at Dinner Church. Together, they find community, even in the midst of disaster. Scott discovers how smallacts ofconnection hold more power than werealize in a time when ourdifferences are being weaponized, and learns to create activism and justice workfueled by empathy and relationship.With tenderness and humor, Scott weavesstories and reflections from the life of her unlikely congregation while articulating the value of church as a place where people can hear notonly that they are loved but that they are good.ForAllWhoHungeris a story about a Godwhose love has no limits and a faith that opens our eyes to the truth.There's a placeforyou at thetable.