Circling the Table: The Spirit and Practice of Roundtable Worship

Bookcover with people sitting around a round table

I have been building round communion tables and developing the practice of Roundtable Worship for over 20 years. This form of worship and spiritual formation is rooted in the practices of circle conversation at the heart of restorative justice.

This book lays out the practice of this worship as well as the theological perspectives and commitments undergirding it. These include an understanding of worship as rehearsal of the drama of God’s creative and redemptive work within a planetary and cosmic perspective; a focus on the covenantal history of Israel’s struggle for God’s perfect governance; a reclaiming of the confederal, conciliar, and republican symbolism overshadowed by that of patriarchal monarchy in biblical and church history; a “social” understanding of the Trinity; and a conversational understanding of the “Word” present in table fellowship that is drawn from the circle practices of restorative justice.

The presentation of the actual practices of roundtable worship provides a template for groups who want to implement this worship practice in their lives. I conclude with a discussion of the role and significance of this form of worship for the wider church.

At this moment in the life of fragile democracies around the world, this focused worship practice seeks to re-form us in the conversational dynamics at the heart of the ancient church’s experience of the Holy Spirit. In this “holy conversation” we might begin to heal the estrangement among citizens in a public life convulsed by the media transformations of our time.