Local Outreaches
What is The Open Table?
Open Table trains congregation members, through the Open Table Model, to form communities – called Tables – that transform their vocational and life experiences into tools our Brothers and Sisters in poverty can use to develop and implement plans that create change. The Open Table process is a catalyst for the collaboration of faith communities, government, universities, business and non-profits working through a shared purpose model to move themselves and their communities from a transactional relationship with our Brothers and Sisters in poverty to one of transformation.
A Table is formed by 6-12 volunteers who bring their vocational and life experiences along with their personal networks to an impoverished family for approximately one year. Together, with the brother and sister being served, the Table develops and implements a customized Life Plan to empower the family to begin living into their human potential God gave to them.
Versions of the model are available for Homeless/Working Poor, Young Adults, Veterans and Re-Entry. New model versions are incubating.
What do YOU have to offer?
The Open Table process develops Missional Communities committed to the transformation of a family or individual in poverty. However, Table members say they are often more transformed than their Brother or Sister. When the Open Table process is complete, these Missional Communities, having brought each other through the wilderness of poverty, where they collided with society’s false beliefs about the poor, become a new community in which the family or individual they helped is now unrecognizable from those who did the helping. In many instances, individuals helped in Open Table return as Table members helping the next family.
You have years of life experience, education, as well as a relational network and we have a way for you to share that experience in a way that can help someone move from living in poverty to experiencing
The Commitment
- Average of 1-2 hours a week for 12 months
- Build a lifelong relationship with the Brother or Sister you will walk with
- Serve alongside 3-4 other people (depending on the version of the model)