Do you like potluck dinners? I do! I've always loved them. The word "potluck" means just how it sounds; it's a meal of chance. We gather and eat meals made by other people, using recipes we don't know. We serve something out of a pot or a casserole dish onto our plates and discover what it's like. I never really thought of potluck dinners as spiritual but I read an article a few years ago that made me think differently. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, there’s a great spiritual lesson about gathering together for potluck meals. So, let’s listen to it.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3-4)

My wife Pam and I used to attend a church, Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in Scrabble, Virginia. They celebrated a monthly event called The Brotherhood. Each month on a Friday evening, families would gather for a potluck dinner. The men would arrange a presentation and the women would prepare wonderful foods...and lots of it! There was always way more food than we needed, so nobody could possibly go away hungry. Everyone showed up with great generosity, even those who couldn’t afford to bring much food. That's the way potlucks should work—and that's the way the Church should work, too. When our congregations live this way, we experience what the early church experienced in Acts 4, when Luke wrote: "There was not a needy person among them."

How about you today? Some folks only come to church to be fed. Let me encourage you to consider how you might bless others with what you have to give, materially and spiritually. Churches, you and me—we should all reflect the wonderful generosity of our God and when we do...that is very Good News!