CONNECTEDInspiring stories, ideas and resources to help you connect with your communiuty

Featuring examples

from the 2011

Longest Lutheran Lunch

CONNECTEDInspiring stories, ideas and resources

An Overview ............................................ i

Creative ideas ............................................ i

Cultural themes ............................................ i

Community engagement ............................................ i

School focus ............................................ i

More ideas ............................................ i

Global justice ............................................ i

Web-based resources ............................................ i

OVERVIEW

Hospitality is a gift we Lutherans have always of-fered our communities. Indeed, Martin Luther regularly brought people together around food and wine for his famous ‘Table Talk’. Much of Jesus’ interaction with people happened around food too.

Operation Connect offers you resources to use hospitality to connect with family, friends and community.

The Longest Lutheran Lunch held on Sunday 30 October 2011 as entrée to give you a taste, with the main course of Operation Connect Bon appétit!

Masterchef. My Kitchen Rules. Poh’s Kitchen. Jamie, Nigella … seems our lives are full of food and foodies.

Yet we Lutherans have been doing great food ‘forever’.That’s why to launch Operation Connect (the Lutheran Church’s hospitality initiative) you and your congrega-tion are invited to hold a Longest Lutheran Lunch.

The dream is to have the ‘longest’ in three ways:1. Sit at tables set out in a single long row 2. Take your time and have a long leisurely meal 3. Have meals going the long way from New Zealand right across Australia to finish in Western Australia!

OPERATION CONNECT { and the Longest Lutheran Lunch }

CREATIVE

If you like liberal lashings of lentil salad with your leg of lamb, you would have loved Tuggeranong’s Longest Lutheran Lunch. Good Shepherd Com-munity Church, Tuggeranong, lacked no creativ-ity when deciding on a theme for their lunch. The south Canberra congregation took it literally and decided all food had to begin with L.

Congregation member Jacqui Tepper came up with the theme and wrote a poem to entice people to come along.About 35 congregation members of all ages enjoyed a selection of lasagnes, lettuce, lentils, loaves of bread, legs of lamb, lemon desserts and

lemonade.Congregation member Sharon Stephan said the theme allowed for one loophole. ‘If the food didn’t start with L, we decided we would still accept it if it was made with love’, said Sharon.

Sharon said the lunch provided the perfect opportunity for congregation members to take time out and get to know each other better. ‘It’s so important to sit down and share a meal together because that’s when you relax and really open up’, she said. ‘You learn a lot about what’s going on in other people’s lives.

an ‘L’ of a good time {Tuggeranong, NSW }

We’ve just celebrated the Commemoration of the Reformation, some of us by participating in The Longest Lutheran Lunch.

It was a really wonderful day at the congregation in which I worshipped and celebrated, with a lot of Lutheran people and paraphernalia as well – even Luther dolls, a Luther-an beanie bear (actually a ‘Holy Bear’ with Luther rose embroidered on its chest) and my own picture of Luther set up in a vacant chair at our table!

It was great fun and a way of affirming our identity as Lutherans and sharing it with others.

I hope we can continue such events as real openings for those we can invite who otherwise would not be so comfortable participating in worship at this point in their lives.

That’s the goal of Operation Connect of which the Longest Lutheran Lunch is the first instalment.

Pastor Greg Pietsch (Vic District President)

bear-ing it all { Box Hill, Vic }

Angaston, SA really got creative by celebrating the “Wurst” Lutheran Lunch that

turned out to be a great family day with people from the very young to more mature.

Moorabbin, Vic went to great lengths to create a Long food theme with... long spaghetti,

long bread stick, long chocolate roll, and even a long luncher: John from America at 6’4”

Lobethal, SA came a accross a bit of a snag in the planning for their Longest Lutheran Lunch a

sausage many metres long kept these cooks busy. Guests were occupied my several “longest” games

Rochedale, Qld expanded on an old Aussie favourite by producing a record breaking longest lutheran lamington. By the look of it they got a definite thumbs up from these three young lads.

CULTURAL

The weather was perfection plus the date was opti-mum. Market umbrellas and gazebo canvases were up and the checked tablecloths flapping on the lon-gest table gracing our church lawn.

Redeemer Lutheran Church Toowoomba was ready to celebrate Reformation Day, during family week, with the Longest Lutheran Lunch. Members of the congregation were initially a bit daunted that they may have to sit around for a very long time being convivial, but were interested to hear it was all to do with time zones.

Pastor Christian Fandrich started the festivities with grace in German.

Our masterchefs rolled out glazed ham, BBQ fillet, boerwurst, Aussie Sauerkraut, baked Kartoffeln, Broetchen, Apfel Strudel, Streusel Kartoffelkuchen and black forest cake. Quite a feast!

We had a rollicking good time Deutsch style, with the best costumes and impressive biersteins competing for prizes. Pastor Kevin Kotzur almost scored 100% in the Martin Luther quiz and together we sang songs accompanied by the small oompah band.

Deutsch Style { Redeemer, Toowoomba, Qld }

Vicar Tat Tsui, minister to the Chinese congrega-tion at Botany in Auckland, had been ecstatic with excitement in the build-up for the Longest Luther-an Lunch. He anticipated great creativity from his people as they brought dishes to share for lunch that reflected the Reformation -- perhaps egg salads representing new life, or dishes with 95 ingredients

And of course there would also be all the usual dish-es that feature at Botany fellowship lunches: sweet and sour pork, Peking duck, black-bean sauce beef, egg fu yong, fried rice, spring rolls...

Vicar Tat says that the Chinese congregation at Botany can rightfully claim the title of having the ‘longest Longest Lutheran Lunch’. ‘We celebrate Lutheran meals at every possible moment, so we can claim for ourselves the “longest” Lutheran meal because we are kind of eating all the time!’

Thankfully, Vicar Tat did not follow through on his much-publicised threat to preach the Longest Lutheran Sermon on this day. But true to the theme of the day, he spoke about food and how it helps us to understand the gospel.

Chinese Style { Botany, Auckland, NZ }

Buccleuch, SA are a little rural congregation with a great spirit. They also demonstrated true

deutsch pedigree with what would have to be the littlest lederhosen - well done.

Cowell, SA held a longest meal in their hall deco-rated in the colours of Saxony with sayings of

Martin Luther pinned around the room, a German Bible and various books by Martin Lu-

ther on display. Geraniums brightened the tables.

The three-congregation parish - Kapunda, Allen’s Creek and Bethel - spared not a pretzel when it

came to preparing the lavish spread, which included platters of mettwurst, sour cucumbers, crackers, cheese and a German summer herb dip.

Waikerie, SA ecouldn’t contain their excitement for their German food and fun, in fact it was so

big they had to take over the local basketball stadium ... a slam-dunk of an idea.

COMMUNITY

We moved our usual 8.30 am lunch to a 10.00 am service in the nearby Tondoon Botanic Gar-dens. After the service we had some games and quizzes, and a game of cricket was underway all through the day. Then we had a sausage sizzle for lunch, with people bringing along salads and desserts to share (in the usual Lutheran extremely large quantity!)

We wanted a local Central Queensland celebration, which is why we went for outside in the gardens (great weather always up here), cricket and games

outside, good fellowship and finishing up with a barbie together. A great time was had by all.

As an aside, many people were walking through the gardens during our service, and one couple stopped to film us for a while, and then went and sat down behind us and had their picnic while watching our service. We took the opportunity to give them a service order so they could join in, and they stayed and chatted at the end. Made us reflect on the val-ue of getting out there and witnessing with what we do.

Botanic Gardens { Gladstone, Qld }

Community outreach can be daunting and dis-heartening, especially if no-one turns up. But for Redeemer Lutheran Church, Narraweena, guests outnumbered members at their Aussie barbeque lunch. Coordinator, Sally Bradford, said it was a huge success.

‘At first we were a bit reluctant to extend ourselves, but we went ahead with the attitude “if you invite them they will come!” and we left the rest to the Lord’, said Sally. ‘Over half of the 70 people at lunch were invited guests and not regular church-goers.’

One guest, Jan Elliott, said it was wonderful to speak with such welcoming people. ‘A great way to spend a Sunday,’ she said. Church members catered for the barbeque, with a range of side dishes and desserts from nearly every continent, reflecting the Sydney congregation’s multicultural make-up.

But food was not the only highlight. Three-piece band JAM ( Just Add Music), led by church mem-ber and guitarist Denis Moore along with David Jack and Amanda Robinson, entertained the crowd with favourites from the 60s and 70s. Some were inspired to do a bit of dancing.

the right note { Narraweena, NSW }

Epping, NSW Community Life Group organises four events to engage people each year and this

just was perfect timing – not too much work and well attended. We will definitely do this again

next year and it will get even quirkier” .

Birdwood, SA joined with members of the extended Kowald family - celebrating a reunion. Consequently our longest lunch stretched from the east to the west of Australia, and included our Canadian relative and encompassed family members who were strangers’’ before the day.

Manawatu parish, NZ engaged with their local community by holding a lunch in their

retirement village ‘Sommerset’ as an outreach project including all ages.

Tauranga, NZ Just over 40 people came from far and wide (16 from Hamilton -- eleven arriving in a mini-bus -- two from Whakatane and four from Kawerau) to join the Longest Lutheran Lunch at

the Carmel Country Community Centre.

SCHOOLS

‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if the whole school got involved? Imagine how long the table would be!’

With the lunch boxes not yet empty, Year 6 and 7 students at Nuriootpa’s Redeemer Lutheran School in the Barossa Valley were already imagining what next year’s Longest Lutheran Lunch might look like.

And so was one of their teachers, Darren Altus, whose idea it was to hold a Longest Lutheran Lunch at Redeemer. Hearing a student dream of a lunch involving the whole school got him thinking:

‘What if we didn’t just invite other students, but also members of the local congregation or retirement village to come, too ...

‘I think this event has the potential to be very powerful in assisting students and Lutheran schools to build conenctions with the church and the community.’

Johann, a student, said, ‘The long lunch brought everyone together It was amazing to look down the entire length of the table ... it was really long. Every-one seemed to be talking and having a good time.’

class action { Nuriootpa, SA }

At Prince of Peace Lutheran College (Senior Cam-pus), Everton Hills, Brisbane, the Longest Lunch Lunch was also a late Lutheran lunch, held on Tues-day, 1 November -- Melbourne Cup Day.

Students and staff were invited to dress up in a fancy hat or tie and bring their lunch to sit together at the long tables placed together in the campus’s forecourt.

And while plenty of money changed hands in the course of the lunch, this had nothing with horser-acing or gambling. Instead, the lunch organisers

used the event to focus on the hunger crisis on the Horn of Africa. Each place setting was marked with a coloured placemat explaining how much food a person in Dadaab Refugee Camp might receive, togehter with other sombre information. A dona-tion box was passed around to collect gold coins for Australian Lutheran World Service’s Africa Famine Appeal. Over $500 was raised.

‘The Longest Lutheran Lunch has been a great opportunity for us here at Prince of Peace’, said Libby Farmer, Head of Pastoral Care and Welfare.

hats off to you { Everton Hills, Qld }

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INVITING

Sundays are a gift. Every waking day is a gift, but this particular Sunday seemed to be wrapped up es-pecially for those with the outdoors on their mind: sunny, 20 degrees, blue skies and a cool breeze – perfect cycling weather.

People were busy checking bicycle tyres, brakes and helmets. They were busy donning sunscreen and packing picnic lunches. They were happily busy, all in readiness for the Longest Lunch celebration, hailed as ‘Eat Walk Ride’ in the Adelaide Hills town of Woodside.

At St John’s Lutheran Church, Pastor Steve Liersch led a combined parish service focusing on the idea of a ‘new era with God’. He said that as the Isra-elites entered their new era to the Promised Land ( Joshua 3:1-17), so too did we enter a new era of Christianity, come Reformation day.

This year’s Reformation Day celebrations also marked a new era for the Onkaparinga Parish, as they extended an invitation not only to their own members but to the entire community to come and enjoy lunch, guest speakers and a bike ride or stroll along the Amy Gillett Bikeway.

on your bike! { Woodside, SA }

A group of eight enthusiastic volunteers, headed by Ron Jericho, took a big swing at the word, ‘hospital-ity’ - not only did they plan to provide a “… proper, sit down, knife and fork, hot luncheon”, as Ron put it, but they also sent out almost 400 invitations! It was clear, from the outset that this was going to be true hospitality in bulk and would require coordi-nation and cooperation.

The invitations were sent out to all Lutheran bod-ies in the area; Concordia Kindergarten, Mur-ray Bridge Lutheran Homes Retirement Vil-lage, Lutheran Community Care, Unity College,

Christ Church Lutheran, Holy Cross Luther-an and Zion Monarto Lutheran. Ron said they drew their inspirations from the Operation Con-nect website, and literally tried to implement as much as possible from its many resources. Their main aim was to connect all Lutheran entities in their district through pure and simple hospitality. The morning’s service was held in the Unity College steeple, which can seat up to 400 people and with more than half of the invitations accepted already, it was just as well. Pastor Dean Zweck from Aus-tralian Lutheran College was the guest preacher.

bridging the gap { Murray Bridge, SA }

Pastor Tom and Chairman Greg Schulz went door-to-door visiting the residents of South

Kilkerran, SA inviting them to lunch during the week preceding the event – to their delight, they

had an overwhelmingly positive response.

Aberfoyle Park, SA held a “Community BBQ Fun Day”, on our school oval, next to the church. The third community “Connect” event this year. Around 450 people came to the day, with a good

mix of school, church and wider community. We were blessed with great weather for the day

Ropeley, Qld invited people in the surrounding area to join us for a BBQ lunch and were

fortunate enough to have 10 non-members accept their invitation. A great day was enjoyed by all.

Pinnaroo Lutheran Parish, SA consisting of Pinnaroo, Murrayville and Walpeup

congregations decided to invite the community to share lunch with them at the Pinnaroo

football club, then stay for a quiz.

MORE IDEAS

On Sunday, 30 October, members of neighbour-ing Darling Downs parishes Pittsworth and Oakey gathered at St Peter’s in Pittsworth to celebrate the Longest Lutheran Lunch in true Lutheran style.

There was a great turnout on the day, with 135 people from the six congregations (Millmerran, Yandilla, Pittsworth, Nobby, Oakey and Norwin) attending.

The theme of the day was ‘be part of the banquet that lasts forever by feasting on the word and sacrament’.

A general worship service featuring the parish band, Soul Connection, got the day off to a great start, and this was followed by a communal luncheon in the church grounds and a special ‘Q and A’ session.

The lunch consisted of a variety of traditional Ger-man foods, including sauerkraut, wurst and kuchen, which was prepared by members of the congrega-tions. ‘The day was an affirmation of the Lutheran Church as family’, Pastor Lionel said. There has been wonderful feedback following the event, with many expressing that it was like a family event enjoyed by all.

whole parish { Pittsworth, Qld }

WHILE it is at least four hours from the next closest Lutheran church, the congregation of St Paul’s in Kalgoorlie-Boulder was determined not to let its isolation be a barrier to participating in the inaugural Longest Lutheran Lunch event.

St Paul’s, in the heart of Western Australia’s Goldfields region, is served by Esperance-based Pastor Paul Kramer for one weekend a month which the congregation celebrates by sharing a meal, so organising to be part of the October 30 event was relatively simple.

“We thought that you could not do lunches all the way across from New Zealand to Perth without going through the Goldfields so we needed to be involved,” St Paul’s member Karen Crouch said.

The Kalgoorlie-Boulder congregation kept the event to a casual theme, with a barbecue and pool party hosted by congregational chairman Wayne Astill and wife Sue. Some study questions helped to keep the conversation flowing over lunch, while an African Food Basket that featured during the meal was a real talking point.

most isolated { Kalgoolie, WA }

“There was so much food on the table that we didn’t need to eat dinner that night,” Karen said.

About 25 people attended the event, with a strong contingent of children and teenagers among the diners. The younger patrons also braved a dip in the pool, despite the temperature of 20oC being well below Kalgoorlie’s summertime maximums.

St Paul’s is made up of about 15 families, including two families from Papua New Guin-ea and two from Zimbabwe. It recently hosted a PNG Mission Festival as part of its activities.

The next nearest Lutheran church is in Esperance, 400km south. Kalgoorlie-Boulder is about 600km east of Perth.

JUSTICE

JUSTICE

Our Longest Lutheran Lunch – and, yes, we did celebrate it – was pumpkin leaves, stew with a meat that might have been beef, beans and ugali (a stiff maize porridge you cut with a knife).

Torit is on the way to Ikotos, where drought and conflict force people to survive without food pro-duction for months each year. They call this the ‘hunger gap’.

Through Australian Lutheran World Ser-vice (ALWS), Lutherans from Australia and New Zealand are helping to fill this gap. Together we’ve provided seeds, tools and bore-holes and training for farmers. Because of your action, families here will have a ‘lunch’, too.

All this might seem a long way from your Longest Lutheran Lunch. Yet, as the church of Jesus in this world, we seek to be a community where people are welcomed with friendship, hospitality and care.

Food gives us a simple way to connect with people and helps us understand people’s deeper needs and real hunger.

The person you connect with might be living next door. Or a colleague at work. Or the quiet couple at bowls.

Or they might be the lady I met yesterday in a South Sudan village, whose child had died unexpectedly. And who for seven months of the year does not know what she will feed her surviving children.For many of us, that person might be our own kids or grandchildren, maybe even our life partner – people we love with all our heart who don’t yet know the love of Jesus as we do.

The Longest Lutheran Lunch is not meant to end when the last crumbs are brushed from the table and the dishes washed and dried. I hope that in the months to come, each one of us can find ways to connect more closely and deeply with our com-munity, our family and our neighbours. You’re wel-come to visit www.operationconnect.org for ideas and action-starters. My prayer is that this year’s Longest Lutheran Lunch has given you the taste of a church where love comes to life — the first course of the heavenly banquet to which we’re all invited.

FILLING THE GAP{ South Sudan }

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RESOURCES

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