news article
From the Advocate: Ladles of love: Warming bellies, warming spirits
March 1, 2016 / By Laurel O’Connor
Click below to read the full Advocate online.
Early in spring 2015, a small group came to Pastor Ben O’Connor and me, his wife, with a specific request. They asked if we could lead a Bible study in the Syracuse area that was more of a “dinner-church-meets-Bible-study” model that didn’t fit the “normal church” mold. Open Table CNY was born as a group of 10-15 people who met weekly in the home of one of its members, studying and eating together. The original plan was to plant house churches, fostering a spirit of openness and shared meals.
But the group was more than a Bible study.
During certain liturgical seasons, Pastor Ben and I would engage the small group as a creative space to try new things and take risks. The group re-enacted the Last Supper during Holy Week, putting red hand prints on the cross to symbolize all of our sin and washing our hands in basins to symbolize being washed clean in Christ.
An environment of risk and flexibility was embodied by the entire group. Soon, the group came forward with a yearning to serve outside the bounds of the home. They started by sending computers to a Ugandan seminary. They discovered a shared passion: Cooking and serving.
God was quick to open the door.
Within several weeks, the group connected with the Syracuse United Methodist Churches. The Brown Memorial UMC hoped to start an afternoon service, but needed a group to help start the feeding ministry associated with that service, serving 75-100 people each Sunday.
Over the course of six weeks of service at Brown Memorial, Open Table CNY was reborn as Ladles of Love, a feeding ministry with a small group devotional that focuses on discipleship. Those six weeks were formative to the group’s identity as servant leaders, developing relationships with members at Brown Memorial, and deepening their faith and relationship with each other.
It is about helping the members at Brown realize their own leadership potential as well, whether through serving, planning, and helping at all stages. Ministry is about more than feeding people, it is about listening, loving, and learning from one another.
Since then, the group has sponsored Thanksgiving boxes, Christmas collections, and continues to cook monthly on a large scale for their sisters and brothers on the west side of Syracuse. Where the cooking servants from Ladles of Love will go next is something that they have left up to the Holy Spirit.
Laurel O’Connor serves as the Upper New York Conference’s Field Coordinator for Africa 360. She and husband Pastor Ben O’Connor welcomed a new addition to their family on Jan. 22, baby Timothy Josef O’Connor.