Following the 2023 national gathering of the Open Table Network (OTN), Fiona Thomas, co-leader of the Open Table community in Blackheath, south London, and developmentalist for Appreciating Church, reflects on how simple questions can generate ideas and imagination.

There was much to anticipate about OTN’s annual gathering in Cambridge in June:

• being together with interesting folk,

• sharing in worship that is honest about who we are as LGBTQIA+ people,

• celebrating 15 years since the first Open Table community started, and

• seeing inside a traditional church building transformed by considerable investment which has become a base for LGBTQIA+-friendly ministry in Cambridge.

And yet it also coincided with another commitment I had that day. So when OTN Coordinator Kieran asked me if I would offer a workshop based on Appreciative Inquiry, I wrestled with whether I could be in two places at once.  Having sat with the dilemma for a while I decided wholeheartedly to devote that day to Open Table. I’m glad I did.

OTN has often used Appreciative Inquiry methods to help it discern the way forward, as it did in 2016 when the first Open Table community had multiplied to four communities, and a shared Vision, Mission and Values was needed. The ‘Appreciating Open Table’ day in July that year became a case study in the Appreciating Church book, a practical Appreciative Inquiry resource for churches.

Appreciative Inquiry starts from what’s strong, rather than what’s wrong and seeks out the positive core of an organisation.[1]

For OTN’s national gathering this year, I designed a workshop of 45 minutes, offered twice. The aim was to weave together individuals valuing themselves and valuing Open Table. The potential output would be ideas to forward to OTN’s leaders for what the network might do in the coming year.

We started with paired conversations and three questions:

1.  Tell me about a time when you have been proud of something you’ve done;

2. What do you value most about Open Table?

3. What’s the best question that someone in Open Table could ask you?

Out of that conversation emerged some themes which the groups pulled together by completing this sentence:

‘Open Table is at its best when…’

•  it is as welcoming as we have experienced it;

• it holds both joys and sorrows in creative tension: lament AND celebration;

• it overflows beyond church;

• communication is strong;

• it is genuinely a safe place, where questions can be aired with curiosity and love;

• there is respectful behaviour that protects confidentiality.

Then I invited participants to complete a SOAR exercise (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Resources/Results) with questions I had crafted for the workshop:

Strengths:

• What are Open Table’s major achievements?

• What are the strengths of the Open Table community you know best?

• What skills and gifts do you bring to the Open Table Network?

Opportunities

• What are the opportunities for Open Table to flourish?

• What are the internal opportunities in Open Table that could be used more?

• What can Open Table learn from its partners and allies?

Aspirations

• What story do you want to be hearing at Open Table’s 2024 Annual Gathering?

• What story do you want to be telling at Open Table’s 2024 Annual Gathering?

Resources/Results

• What resources does Open Table have?

• What resources does Open Table need in order to move forward?

• What’s the most innovative step that Open Table could take?

• How will you know that Open Table has got to where you want it to be?

 The people who completed the two workshops generated many ideas which we captured on sticky notes. What was clear was that the strongest of Open Table’s resources are the people who make up Open Table. A hint of this is expressed in the aspirations to hear and tell stories at the 2024 gathering of:

• How the timescale of change is long, and that we may not see fruits ourselves. DO IT ANYWAY!

• How God’s presence in OT communities is transforming the lives of LGBTQIA+ folk… and their wider communities

• More churches becoming inclusive & welcoming communities

• More integration between OT and the other groups & services in the church

• How God is using Open Table communities to minister to others

• That I’ve begun critical steps towards starting an Open Table community in my area

• Local churches being accepting, rather than people having to travel to big cities

• Things having changed in a positive way

• Reaching out to support areas currently with no Open Table community.

Looking into what’s going well, enquiring into the ideas that draw us forward, and valuing all that we are has provided some of the energy for Open Table moving into the future. The rest is up to each one of us.