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Meet the Founder of the ‘Dinner Church’ Movement

Facing the Demons of Isolation and Exclusion with Bread and Wine

COVER STORY—AS WISE PROPHETS have done for thousands of years, Emily Scott saw where American forces of isolation and exclusion were headed. She met these dark forces with delicious dinners that drew together a remarkably diverse congregation despite a host of challenges—including a full-fledged hurricane! For her spiritual foresight and courage, Emily is recognized as the founder of the “dinner church” movement that now is spreading around the world. Now, she tells the inside story of this almost impossible quest in a book she calls simply, For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World.

Think about that title for a moment. Isn’t that what we’re all hoping to find in this season of turbulence, especially in the United States. Please, read this cover story—which is based on our interview with Emily about her hopes for our future—and then share it with friends. As you get excited about Emily’s spiritual adventures, who knows? There may be a dinner church in your future.

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Want More Good News?
We’ve Got Lots to Share!

NAJAH BAZZY ALWAYS INSPIRES US

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR MITCH ALBOM just posted his latest Heart of Detroit video story about our own author and all-around hero Najah Bazzy. The headline is: One nurse is helping hundreds of thousands of people in the Heart of Detroit

Over the years, we have been honored to publish the writings of Zaman International founder Najah Bazzy—who also has been honored as a CNN network and People magazine hero, not to mention a hero whose face was featured on a special edition of Lays potato chips bags.

In addition to her Beauty of Ramadan, Najah also has contributed to our collection Friendship and Faith—and she wrote a chapter of our upcoming book: What Now? A Guide to the Gifts and Challenges of Aging, due to be published in early 2021.

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‘PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION’

AUTHOR and CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST MARTIN DAVIS appears this week on the Play Like a Champion podcast. This nationwide nonprofit has worked with 130,000 coaches to promote education and best practices that will ensure athletic programs are focused on the entire physical, mental and emotional well being of children.

In this new Champion podcast, Martin talks with the hosts about core values in coaching, including the importance of academics as well as athletics. In addition, the hosts ask Martin about his upcoming book 30 Days with America’s High School Coaches. Intrigued? You can learn more about Martin’s work at his home website—where you also can sign up to follow his ongoing columns, podcasts and other news. If you’d like to hear this latest podcast, here’s a direct link to listen to the Play Like a Champion interview with Martin.

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‘THERE IS A LOT OF WISDOM IN THIS BOOK’

THAT’S WHAT JIM FAUSONE tells Col. Clifford Worthy about his memoir, The Black Knight. Fausone is the host of Veterans Radio. He’s a veteran himself who has dedicated his long career to work that has improved conditions for all veterans. One way he highlights veterans’ issues is through these podcasts. Fausone leads Col. Worthy through his entire book, which includes stories about his family, his experiences at West Point as one of its first Black cadets—and even the dramatic night when Col. Worthy and his wife found themselves in a dangerous situation in a rural diner. This 50-minute podcast with Fausone is the best interview we’ve heard with Col. Worthy about his long career, which included service in Europe in the Cold War and later in Vietnam.

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WANT TO SUPER-CHARGE YOUR ZOOM?

JOE GRIMM INTRODUCES PREZI

THIS IS THE SECOND in a series of videos by Michigan State University Journalism Professor Joe Grimm—the founder and coordinator of the 18-volume series of Bias Busters’ guides to cultural competence. In these videos, Joe shares tips for writers, editors, educators and community leaders about how to create media that will excite people as you share your message. In this video, Joe introduces Prezi video tools and shows how he uses them himself in online talks he produces.

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Fueling Our Lamps

THIS WEEK, LARRY BUXTON talks about the values that are leading millions of Americans beyond the dangerous divisions we still face in our post-election political turbulence. He reminds us of timeless virtues, including integrity, humility, courage, tenderness and self-control. “They’re the fuel for leadership,” he says in this week’s short video. Please, visit his website, enjoy this short video and share it with friends.

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HOLIDAYS & MILESTONES

Those 272 Words at Gettysburg

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2020, is the anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. Lincoln scholar Duncan Newcomer writes: “When we re-read his 272 words, we find subliminal poetry—and it is all about birth: conceived, brought forth, birth and rebirth. All the major verbs and nouns reflect this generative feminine motif. To him the killing field can most deeply be seen and felt as a birthing place, not to glorify war and death, but to see glory and new life in the honor and dedication to a high ideal sacrificed for on that ground. That ideal was, in Lincoln’s mind, and then in so many hearers’ minds ever since, the idea of freedom and its soul-mate, equality.”

 

The Christmas season begins

NOVEMBER 15—The American Thanksgiving may not have arrived yet, but millions of Orthodox Christians around the world are turning toward the season of Jesus’s birth—which they refer to formally as the Nativity—with the start of the Nativity Fast on November 15. For many centuries, Eastern Christians have prepared for the Nativity with a 40-day Nativity Fast. And, yes, we know Orthodox dates vary, a detail that Holidays columnist Stephanie Fenton explains in her column.

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Thanksgiving

SOCIALLY DISTANCED DINNERS?—Stephanie Fenton writes, “Thanksgiving in 2020 will undoubtedly look different, but that doesn’t mean Americans can’t still count their blessings—after all, it’s the season of gratitude! Houses of worship across the country are encouraging Americans from their websites, offering a hopeful message in spite of the pandemic: Give thanks anyway!”

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St. Nicholas Day

PLAN AHEAD FOR DECEMBER 6—The white-bearded man in the red suit may travel by reindeer in the West, but on December 6, Sinterklaas, or San Nicola, arrives across Europe on horseback—for St. Nicholas Day. For European children, St. Nicholas Day brings hope of sweets, small toys and surprises. For Christian families, the excitement and gifts of St. Nicholas Day can better prepare children for focus on the Nativity on Christmas Day.

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Care to see all of our Holidays & Festivals columns? It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just remember the address InterfaithHolidays.com

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FAITH & FILM 

ED McNULTY, for decades, has published reviews, magazine articles and books exploring connections between faith and film. Most of his work is freely published. Ed supports his work by selling the Visual Parables Journal, a monthly magazine packed with discussion guides to films. This resource is used coast-to-coast by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.

Among Ed’s free reviews and columns:

1. THE GOOD LORD BIRD—Ed writes, “Ethan Hawke has the role of his life as fiery Abolitionist John Brown in this tongue in cheek mini-series that he created and helped produce and write.  We know at the outset that this isn’t pure history when, before the title we read, ‘All of this is true… Most of it happened.’ The ‘true’ part comes from James McBride’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name, on which the series based.”
2. WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME—“The title of actress/writer Heidi Schreck’s Broadway hit suggests that her one-person (almost) dramedy must be very personal, and we soon see just how deeply personal it is. Attired in a yellow school-type blazer, she takes us back to when she was a precocious 15-year-old competing in American Legion-sponsored What the Constitution Means to Me contests.” He urges all of us to see it—streaming for free now with Amazon Prime.
3. LET HIM GO—“This is sort of a Gothic horror film for senior citizens, thanks to the goose bump-rising performance of Lesley Manning as the matriarch of a North Dakota family. But writer-director Thomas Bezucha’s adaption of Larry Watson’s 2013 novel does not start there but in neighboring Montana. As all good horror thrillers, it starts on a peaceful note on the ranch of Margaret and George Blackledge (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner).”
4. AND BREATHE NORMALLY NOW—”The conflict over immigration and protecting a nation’s borders is not just an American concern, as this dramatic film by first time Icelandic director Ísold Uggadóttir shows.“
5. CHASING FREEDOM—Reaching back to 2004, Ed writes, “Though director Don McBrearty’s TV movie was released in 2004, its concern for the plight of the endangered immigrant remains as timely as ever.”
6. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7—”West Wing lovers might well be ecstatic while viewing writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s new film that Netflix picked up after the pandemic forced Paramount Pictures to scrap plans for a theatrical release. Sorkin’s film is full of the conflict between the powerful and the vulnerable and the fast-paced repartee that made the White House-based series so enjoyable to watch. The infamous trial, dragging out over 4 ½ months, was almost ready-made for a film, with its colorful, controversial characters.”
7. THE WAY I SEE IT—”Director Dawn Porter’s documentary exploring the work of White House photographer Pete Souza is a combination of cinematic Valentine to Barack Obama, the man as well as President, and a polemic against the current occupant of the White House.”
8. THE GOOD LORD BIRD—“Ethan Hawke has the role of his life as fiery Abolitionist John Brown in this tongue-in-cheek Showtime mini-series that he created and helped produce and write. The true part comes from James McBride’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name, on which the series based.”
9. TIME—This gripping documentary was produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2020, where it won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award.
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    Click this photo to read the review of ‘Hosea’ (2019).

    HOSEA—Ed writes, “Director/writer Ryan Daniel Dobson was inspired by the ancient prophet when he wrote and directed this love story that unfolds in the darkness of human lust and depravity. However, instead of the story focusing on the prophet and his mission to a fallen nation, Dobson centers his film on the former prostitute turned wife in present day Oklahoma City. Unlike the Biblical prophet, we are given the back story of how Gomer—here renamed Cate—became a prostitute.”

 

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