A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table (Re: Lit Books) [Paperback]

Tim Chester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2011 | Series: Re: Lit Books

The meals of Jesus represent something bigger. They represent a new world, a new kingdom, a new outlook.

Tim Chester brings to light God’s purposes in the seemingly ordinary act of sharing a meal—how this everyday experience is really an opportunity for grace, community, and mission. Chester challenges contemporary understandings of hospitality as he urges us to evaluate why and who we invite to our table. Learn how you can foster grace and bless others through the rich fare being served in A Meal with Jesus.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“We all know fasting can be a spiritual exercise, but eating is really more like Jesus. In this book, Chester points out that Christianity was meant to be conducted at a table with the intimacy of a shared meal. Church was never meant to be holy services held in sacred buildings conducted by saintly men in long robes passing thin wafers and a thimble of juice—removed from real life. Chester rightly puts us back where we belong...at the table in front of a meal—a feast actually. This is an outstanding treatise on an important subject that was long ago lost in the mire of sacred rituals. It is time we come back to the table and enjoy the life given to us.”
—Neil Cole, founder and director, Church Multiplication Associates; author, Organic Church

"I'm not sure I could name all the titles of the books Tim has now written. I've even written one or two with him. But this is the best so far, by far! It fed my soul and through it I enjoyed grace in a new way. In fact, the book is a sumptuous meal in its own right. Buy it, not just to read it, but to feast on it."
—Steve Timmis, Director, Acts 29 Western Europe; co-author Total Church

“I have always told the congregations I've served that if you take the mountains and meals out of the Bible, it's a very short book. In a world of competing church models and strategies, Tim shows us that Jesus employed one practice over all others: Sharing a meal with people. This book serves as a poignant reminder that grace, mission, and community are never enacted best through programs and propaganda, but rather through the equality and acceptance experienced at the common table. May our lives never be too busy to live this out.”
—Mike Breen, Global Leader, 3DM; author, Building a Discipleship Culture

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

“We all know fasting can be a spiritual exercise, but eating is really more like Jesus. In this book, Chester points out that Christianity was meant to be conducted at a table with the intimacy of a shared meal. Church was never meant to be holy services held in sacred buildings conducted by saintly men in long robes passing thin wafers and a thimble of juice—removed from real life. Chester rightly puts us back where we belong...at the table in front of a meal—a feast actually. This is an outstanding treatise on an important subject that was long ago lost in the mire of sacred rituals. It is time we come back to the table and enjoy the life given to us.”
—Neil Cole, founder and director, Church Multiplication Associates; author, Organic Church

"I'm not sure I could name all the titles of the books Tim has now written. I've even written one or two with him. But this is the best so far, by far! It fed my soul and through it I enjoyed grace in a new way. In fact, the book is a sumptuous meal in its own right. Buy it, not just to read it, but to feast on it."
—Steve Timmis, Director, Acts 29 Western Europe; coauthor, Total Church

“I have always told the congregations I've served that if you take the mountains and meals out of the Bible, it's a very short book. In a world of competing church models and strategies, Tim shows us that Jesus employed one practice over all others: Sharing a meal with people. This book serves as a poignant reminder that grace, mission, and community are never enacted best through programs and propaganda, but rather through the equality and acceptance experienced at the common table. May our lives never be too busy to live this out.”
—Mike Breen, Global Leader, 3DM; author, Building a Discipleship Culture

“Tim Chester has a keen ability to reflect on gospel, community, and mission, making them accessible to the common person through the mess and movement of everyday life. Tim certainly accomplished this again in A Meal with Jesus. With each meal, my convictions about how the gospel informs all of life and relationships went deeper, and my affections for Jesus grew stronger. I want everyone in my church to read this book.”
—Jeff Vanderstelt, Lead Pastor, Soma Communities, Tacoma, Washington; Vice President, Acts 29

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Crossway (April 7, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1433521369
• ISBN-13: 978-1433521362
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Evangelism > Missions & Missionary Work

More About the Author

Dr Tim Chester is a director of the Porterbrook Seminary which provides affordable, Bible-college level training for church leadership and missional church in the context of your ministry (www.porterbrookinstitute.org). He is a leader of The Crowded House, a church planting network (www.thecrowdedhouse.org). He blogs at www.timchester.co.uk. He has previously been Research and Policy Director for Tearfund UK and a part-time lecturer in missiology. He is the author of a number of books and series editor of The Good Book Guides (The Good Book Company). He is married with two daughters.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book May 4, 2011

By Todd

Format:Paperback

I will admit I did not know what to expect when I started to read this book. Was not really sure what it would be all about, but since I like to eat, a lot, and I love serving Jesus with my life I was intrigued by the title. After just reading the introduction I was greatly challenged to reconsider some things about how I do ministry. I saw that I had fallen into the trap of the Pharisees at times and was just looking to serve the righteous, not the sinner. Chester shows how significant it was for Christ to come and dine with the worst of sinners very early on in the book. Although I preach and teach about grace on a weekly basis, I was appalled to realize how little like Jesus I am in this area. You see I love to eat, and have dinners with friends, but most of the time it is just with those most like me. The good guys if you will. I rarely, if ever, go outside of my comfort zone in this area. I was hit with all of these thoughts in just the first few pages of the book as I read the introduction.

In chapter 1Chester continues the theme of meals being a form of grace. Chapter two finds him point out the communal aspect of meals, and in chapter 3 he shows the hope that Jesus' meals with others brought. In chapter 4 Chester shows how we can eat missionaly, and let me just say I like this idea a lot! Chapter 5 brings us to a look at the Lord's supper and at how a meal can represent our salvation. Chester closes the book with chapter 6 looking meals as a form of promise.

I do not want to give away all that the author says in the book, because this is definitely one you need to read and re-read for yourself. The author is very faithful to scripture and challenges you to think more intentionally about eating and using it not just as a means to the end of nourishment , but as a way to spread the gospel of Christ.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stuff you haven't heard on a topic that really matters. November 8, 2011

By Brian Sun

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

3 meals a day, 7 days is a week, is 21 meals a week, 84 meals a month, and 1092 meals a year.

The point is not the actual number. The point is we spend a lot of time eating. That's why this book matters.

A Meal with Jesus affirms something we do so often that is essential to our existence on planet Earth, shows how it's integral to God's design, and gives us unconventional paradigms that change the way we live life and do ministry.

Honestly, the sections about hospitality as mission make the book worth buying, reading, and keeping on your shelf to refer back to. Because Chester covers things like how meals help us move from theoretical community to real community, how meals bring mission into the ordinary, and how if you routinely share meals with people and you have a passion for Jesus you'll be doing mission.

You probably haven't heard this stuff anywhere else -- on a topic that matters so much to our daily lives.

A Meal with Jesus is definitely worth reading.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Recapturing the centrality of lives lived together July 13, 2011

By Arthur Sido

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

At first glance Tim Chester's new book A Meal With Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission around the Table doesn't look like much. The cover is clever, with the plaid pattern reminiscent of the old Betty Crocker cookbook but the book itself is a pretty light 144 pages. The content though? Outstanding.

There are quite a few books I enjoyed reading, many more that I did not. Only a few are really impactful and this is one of them. I reviewed one of Tim Chester's earlier works, Total Church, back in 2010 (see my review here) and really liked it. I liked A Meal With Jesus a lot more.

The basic premise of A Meal With Jesus is that sharing a meal is far more than just getting a bite to eat. By looking throughout the New Testament, Tim shows us example after example of meals that Jesus was involved in and how often the meal was the setting for something profound. That is true even today. Meals shared with others represent times of fellowship, gatherings of the church, community witness and of course opportunity for mission. As Chester walks us through Luke's Gospel account, we see meals as enacted grace, enacted hope, enacted promise, etc. I am not sure if Tim would go this far but I see shared meals as even more crucial to the life and mission of the church than Sunday morning meetings.

I liked that Tim uses real examples of how this works because that helps us to see the practical and not just the theoretical but I really liked that he didn't let anecdotes take over the story. This is not a book about "How we do it and why you should to" but instead "This is how Jesus did it and why He did it and we should all do likewise". Too many books recently are nothing but a string of anecdotes with an occasional Scripture verse tossed in. A Meal With Jesus is (pun intended) a feast of God's Word. These are all stories you have read before, events in the Bible many of us know by heart but Tim manages to tie them together into a cohesiveness that is really outstanding. This is a book that made my head hurt several times, not because it was so wordy and hard to read but because of the really profound ramifications of what he has laid out. When you think about it, the Bible starts off with people eating (the forbidden fruit in the Garden) and ends with people eating (the Wedding Feast of the Lamb) and the pivotal moment in the Bible, the cross, is preceded by an intimate meal that we still remember and commemorate today.

The church lost our understanding of hospitality, fellowship and community long ago. It is even worse today than ever. With constant attention grabbing from electronics, lives stuffed full of rushing around from activity to activity and the church relegated to an hour long performance on Sunday morning, sharing meals and our lives with one another seems both quaint and impractical. Tim is calling the church back to a place where deliberate, intentional sharing of our food, our home and our time takes priority in the life of the church and I believe this can recapture some of what we have lost when it comes to being a particular people of God. I can unreservedly recommend A Meal With Jesus as a book that will open your eyes.