Mealtime Togetherness
Consider the significance of mealtime at home with your family. It’s a sad fact that today just 40 percent of American families eat together—and then no more than two or three times a week. A generation ago close to 80 percent of families ate evening meals together.1
“The dinner table is a traditional symbol and practical center of family togetherness,” writes Dr. Paul Mickey. “It is the place where we eat, talk, relax, and enjoy the company of those we love most… Every mealtime is a time of giving and receiving, serving and being served.” 2
“Someone has worked to pay for the food… shopped for the food… prepared it… cleaned up the dining area and set the table attractively. As the meal begins, someone will pass a dish to you, and you will pass it to someone else. Everyone is serving and being served.”3
Jesus revered the common meal. At His last meal with His disciples, He broke unleavened bread and shared the cup. We call it The Lord’s Supper. He went to a wedding. He dined with Pharisees. He served dinner on the grounds to more than 5,000 people. He, the Son of God, prepared breakfast for His disciples by the Sea of Galilee after His resurrection.
On at least 20 occasions recorded in Scripture, Jesus participated in a meal or told a parable related to a mealtime experience. He usually broke bread with His disciples at the end of the day.
Yes, today’s heavy social and work schedules often interfere with families eating together. Sometimes both parents work and/or are not even home at the same time. Or it may be a single parent home. Or other hinderances cause families to eat in shifts. We understand this.
But what’s missing? Enjoying company and conversation. A time to reconnect over table talk and laughter. No phones. No television. No toys.
A couple of my kids were still in elementary school the night I decided to make our mealtimes more significant. I set the dining table with a beautiful cloth and lighted candles and arranged an attractive centerpiece. When our children came in from play, they curiously poked their heads into the dining room.
“Who’s coming for dinner?” one asked, expecting me to name the expected guests.
“You are,” I replied. “Because to me you are the most important people who will ever sit at our table.” I had shocked them. No more plastic cloth on the Formica kitchen table set with just any old dishes. No, my family deserved the best. We continued that practice for years. And if my husband could not get home until very late, the rest of us sat down to eat together.
I noticed that as our children grew older, we lingered longer and longer — eating, talking, sharing, at the big dining table I had previously reserved for company. We gathered at the same long wooden table I’d inherited from my mom’s old boarding house in Tallahassee, where over the years hundreds had eaten her meals served family-style. Since I was a waitress in her dining room, I never sat down with my brothers for a meal.
But then as a mom with a growing family—well, I finally got us into a new mealtime habit. I was pretty slow in recognizing the need, I admit. And it wasn’t always easy when the children’s after-school activities or their dad’s late job delayed our “suppertime.”
Discovering what works best for our families takes experimentation. There are various seasons of our lives when we must shift our well-intended plans. But even if you can only enjoy just one to two sit-down meals a week at home with your family—it is worth the effort.
I know because my grown children talk about those evenings when they come to my house with their kids. And we laugh over some of the conversations we had in those days. And as a bonus, they learned to help me cook and set the table in a variety of creative styles.
Prayer: Lord, thank You that You cared about mealtime. Help us treat our family with as much courtesy and consideration as any guest we would invite—including the way we cook and serve the food. Lord, in the busyness of our day help us as parents realize how important it is to eat together as a family once in a while. Amen.
Scripture: Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him and he with Me.” (Rev.3:20 NASB)
1.Food Marketing Institute, www:vision.org>family-eats-togother 1336.
2. Paul A. Mickey and William Proctor, Charisma Magazine, March 1986, reprinted from their book Tough Marriage.
3. Ibid.
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