A meal for everyone - Interview with OTN Coordinator in United Reformed Church magazine
Revd Dr John Bradbury, United Reformed Church General Secretary and a Patron of the Open Table Network, with the Open Table Cambridge community at Downing Place URC in the university city
THIS MONTH’s issue of Reform, the United Reformed Church (URC) magazine, features an interview with Open Table Network Coordinator Kieran Bohan, since the URC is one of five national church traditions whose churches host our Open Table communities.
In the interview, Kieran tells our story of how we never intended to be a nationwide network, starting with just one group of six people from four different church traditions, united in the common desire to worship God together fully as LGBT+ Christians.
Kieran explains:
The thing that our traditions had in common was gathering around the table, sharing Communion, so that was the shape our worship took. At our first planning meeting, somebody asked: ‘Will it be open table?’ Being from a Roman Catholic background, I didn’t know what that meant. She explained that it meant that everyone is welcomed, without a test of membership or belonging or worthiness, that everyone can come and receive Communion. My heart leapt within me. I was overjoyed. That central act of hospitality of our Christian tradition was key to the invitation we wanted to convey. So Open Table is what we called it.
The URC has an important place in the story of the Open Table Network - the first Open Table community outside Liverpool began in St Johns URC Warrington in 2015, seven years after the Liverpool community started. Since then, three more URC churches have hosted Open Table communities, including Open Table Cambridge, which was co-founded by John Bradbury, now General Secretary of the URC and a Patron of the Open Table Network. John spent his first years in ministry in Liverpool. He shared his story with the Open Table Network in a Q&A webinar in December 2020, which you can watch on our YouTube channel [58 mins]. We are also in conversation with other URC churches who are exploring whether they are able to host an Open Table community in the near future.