STAYING AT THE TABLE: Being the Church We Say We Are. By Rev. Terri Hord Owens. Foreword by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2025. Xiv + 110 pages.
Heads of Communion, people like the Pope, from time to time issue encyclicals or something akin to them. These documents, which often get published in book form, speak to the churches/denominations they lead. They often appear during moments of transition or when major changes are occurring. They may be issued as a call for the church to come together on a particular topic, such as the environment, current political concerns, matters of social justice, or doctrinal concerns. In Staying at the Table: Being the Church We Say We Are, the Rev. Terri Hord Owens, General Minister and President (GMP) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), speaks to the denomination she leads on questions of identity and the way the church addresses areas of concern, even as the denomination enters a season of structural transformation. So, in one sense, this book speaks first and foremost to members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Nevertheless, much of what she shares with the Disciples community has application beyond the Disciples.
Robert D. Cornwall
Rev. Owens, who is the first African American woman to serve as the head of communion of a mainline Protestant denomination, is in her second term as the Disciples general minister and president, a term she began in 2023. Her title may need some unpacking, as she serves two roles. In one role, she is the denomination’s senior pastor. However, she is also the denomination’s chief executive officer. She speaks to the church pastorally as its General Minister but deals with the structural elements as its President. For those outside the Disciples tradition, the Disciples structure is defined covenantally and not hierarchically. She leads more through persuasion than through top-down authority. In other words, when it comes to Disciples polity, it’s complicated.
One reason she wrote this book is that she is involved in leading the denomination through a series of major structural changes that affect the way the denomination governs itself. While this is important, a more important question is a question of identity. Thus, the subtitle of Staying at the Table is Being the Church We Say We Are. As to what this refers to, she speaks of the Disciples’ identity statement: “We Are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one Body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s table as God has welcomed us.” This identity statement was developed during Owens’s predecessor’s term as General Minister and President. Based on conversations Owens had with leadership when she became GMP, she decided the church didn’t need to develop new words to describe its identity. Rather, the church as a whole needed to embrace the words of the denomination’s identity statement and live more fully into them. This identity statement essentially serves as a reframing of the Disciples’ historic commitment to Christian unity and its practice of gathering at the Lord’s Table.
Before I go further into my review of Staying at the Table, I need to say a few things about my relationship to Rev. Owens, whom I know as Terri, and the denomination she serves. I am an ordained Disciples pastor, having been ordained forty years ago. Though I am officially retired, I continue to serve the larger church in positions of leadership. I currently serve as the co-chair of the Disciples-Evangelical Lutheran Church of America bilateral dialogue. I formerly served as a board member and board chair of the Disciples ecumenical agency — Christian Unity and Interfaith Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada (a board that she served on as an ex officio member with a vote). In also served on the denomination’s General Board as the CUIM representative. I have held leadership roles at the regional level and served as a pastor of Disciples congregations over a period of twenty-three years before my retirement in 2021. So, I know the denomination from the inside and have a personal connection to the author.
In introducing Staying at the Table, Owens speaks to the vision she wishes to share with her church in this “encyclical.” This vision involves a call to the church to stay at the table during uncertain times. The Disciples, like many mainline and even evangelical denominations, have experienced a decline in membership as well as the number of churches (some congregations have closed while others have chosen to leave the denomination). Part of the struggle comes from our inability as people of faith, largely due to political differences, though sometimes theological differences, to stay at the table. With this as a backdrop, her message is rooted in the belief “that God is a God of limitless love,” which in turn calls us to “fully embrace the humanity in each one.” With this limitless love serving as a foundation for conversation, “the covenant that Jesus established at the table of the Lord must be reflected in the community we build together” (p. xi).
Staying at the Table has seven chapters. Owens titles her first chapter “Everything Begins with God.” It is in this chapter that she roots the message of this document in her belief in God’s limitless love. She rightfully declares that what we believe about God is rooted in how we understand Jesus’ life and teachings, as well as how we engage with others. Our calling as church, therefore, involves aligning ourselves with how God sees us. In her view, since God is a God of limitless love, our engagement with others should be inclusive, not exclusive.
With this established, we move on in Chapter 2 to a further exploration of what she means by limitless love. The chapter, which is titled “Let’s Start with Limitless Love,” explores how the Bible defines God’s love, as well as the call to love our neighbors. While some traditions begin with doctrine, in the Disciples tradition, relationships are understood to stand above doctrine. Therefore, at our best, we believe in the importance of embracing one another, even when we disagree. Being that I am a participant in the denomination, I will acknowledge that this is not easy. Therefore, Disciples, like other denominations, have struggled to stay together as we deal with the hot topics of the day, such as the inclusion of LGBTQ persons or what it means to be an anti-racist church. The church has taken stands on social justice issues that have been caught up in a backlash in the larger culture toward DEI and alleged wokeness present in institutions, including religious institutions. How do we stay at the table when the denomination’s governing body (the General Assembly) has taken stands on such matters, and some in the church disagree?
With the first two chapters focusing on God’s limitless love along with what that means for the church, in the third chapter, Owens invites us to “Imagine with Me.” In this chapter, the GMP invites us to imagine with her what the church could be, including imagining the kinds of changes that might be required of us. In this chapter, Owens draws on Walter Brueggemann’s book The Prophetic Imagination for inspiration. Central to her vision for the church she leads is that the church would embrace her priorities of biblical literacy and spiritual growth. She rightfully laments the widespread biblical illiteracy in the church and calls on the church to change that reality, even as it embraces spiritual practices that bring renewal to the church. I should note here that with the noncreedal nature of the Disciples tradition, the assumption has been that the church should be guided by the Bible (especially the New Testament).
Having invited us to engage in prophetic imagination rooted in biblical literacy, Owens moves on in the fourth chapter to her call for the Disciples to “Be the Church We Say We Are.” In this chapter, she again calls for the churches to embrace spiritual and contemplative practices, so that spiritual growth can occur. She also warns against the dangers of religious institutionalism. I’m sure it occurs to her that she leads a religious institution, which has all the accouterments of an institution. Being that I have been a participant in the institutional church from congregation to middle judicatory to the larger denominational realities (as noted above, I chaired the board of one of the denomination’s general ministries, as well as serving our General Board). So, I know what this entails. Making changes in institutions is not easy because everyone, including the General Minister and President, has a vested interest in the institution’s survival. While recognizing this truth, she nevertheless calls on the church not to get caught up in preserving the institution at the cost of following Jesus. This will require a great deal of prophetic imagination so that we can be a church motivated by Jesus’ call “to love God and neighbor, and to share the good news, making disciples and bearing witness to God’s limitless love” (p. 68).
The chapters in Staying at the Table that describe the identity and purpose of the denomination lead to the fifth chapter, which is titled “Staying at the Table.” In this chapter, which echoes the book’s title, Owens focuses on the role the Lord’s Table plays in Disciples life. The Disciples are known as a tradition that gathers at the Lord’s Table at least weekly (though some congregations may not follow this part of the tradition; this is generally Disciples practice). Therefore, when it comes to staying at the Table, the Lord’s Table (Eucharist) serves as a defining image. Central to the message of the Table is one of openness and welcome. The assumption is that when it comes to the Lord’s Table, everyone is welcome, no matter who they are. Again, this invitation is shared at a time when division and polarization are present in the larger society (both in the United States and Canada, the two nations represented by the denomination’s members and congregations). She raises the point that while the church has a responsibility to speak to matters of social justice, it faces the question of how the church can speak to what are controversial issues while staying at the table despite disagreements on those issues. Again, she roots her hopes in God’s limitless love.
The sixth chapter takes us to the next step in the process of staying at the table, which is “Changing the Narrative.” When Owens speaks here of changing the narrative, she has more in mind than simply transformation. She also emphasizes the importance of telling our stories, so that, having told our stories, we as the church can discern what these stories (this narrative) are saying about who we are as church. The challenge here is that telling our stories requires that we engage in something that is very difficult, and that is truth-telling. She writes that “staying at the table requires honesty, candor, truth telling, but above all a commitment to engage with one another in the love that God has given to us” (p. 94).
Owens concludes Staying at the Table with a chapter titled “I Want a Church.” It is in this chapter of her “encyclical” that she offers her vision for the church. Ultimately, it is a vision that seeks to emulate Jesus. With that in mind, as she envisions the church living out its calling by bearing witness to God’s love for the world, a witness that involves speaking on social justice issues. As she points out, the Hebrew prophets and the New Testament speak clearly to what this involves, including not neglecting widows and orphans or oppressing strangers. The vision of the church embraced here reflects the message of Jesus in Matthew 25. What is interesting about Rev. Owens’s vision for the church is that it is theologically orthodox, while embracing a strong message of inclusion and social justice. In other words, her vision of the church is rooted in following Jesus, who embodies God’s limitless love.
Staying at the Table serves as something of an encyclical, something that William Barber notes in his Foreword. Barber points out that “At a moment when so many people have been disappointed by Christianity and confidence in churches is low, publishing an encyclical letter is a bold and audacious act” (p. vi). While this is true, Barber is correct in his recommendation that Staying at the Table serve as “a catalyst for conversation about how the story at the heart of the Christian story can resonate with others to bring life and hope to our world” (pp. vi-vii). While this is a book written by the head of a particular denomination that draws on Disciples’ history, theologies, practices, and sense of purpose, it can also speak to other communities who are experiencing similar transitions and transformations, just as long as the readers understand that it has a specific community in mind. Thus, Staying at the Table will resonate with those outside the Disciples community, similar to reading a papal encyclical speaking to Catholics but having something valuable to say to those outside that tradition.
Since this is a review of a book, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a few editing issues that should have been caught before publication. Perhaps the most obvious is the use of “Foreword” on the book’s cover to describe William Barber’s chapter, while on the inside it is listed as the preface. It could serve in either role, but there needs to be consistency. In my view, “Foreword” would be the more appropriate choice. While there are a few editorial issues and a few places I might quibble with something she writes, I believe that Staying at the Table does serve as an encyclical, which, as William Barber points out, is “a pastoral letter written to a particular communion with the intention of being overheard” (p. v). May it be so, such that we not only stay at the table but be the church we say we are.
This review originally appeared on BobCornwall.com.
Robert D. Cornwall is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Now retired from his ministry at Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Troy, Michigan, he serves as Minister-at-Large in Troy. He holds a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and is the author of numerous books, including his latest “Eating with Jesus: Reflections on Divine Encounters at the Open Eucharistic Table.” His blog Ponderings on a Faith Journey can be found here.
