Picture a place where an older couple can sit at a table with two young people sporting the body art du jour, the four of them complete strangers, discussing the new Star Trek movie over a bowl of soup.

“It’s a picture of what the community of heaven must look like,” said Matt Schur.

This brand of “extreme soup supper” known as The Table is the community building ministry hatched by Schur and others from Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Lincoln.

Located within the Indigo Bridge bookstore in Lincoln’s Haymarket district, The Table is open every weekday from 11:30 to 1:30 providing diners with wholesome food and authentic community. The menu includes two types of vegetarian soup and homemade bread made with local organic ingredients, as well as an inclusive environment for people to become acquainted.

The Table is based on the inclusive dining concept developed by the SAME Café in Denver. Schur said The Table’s ministry is two-fold.

There are no prices set for the soup and bread. Diners are asked to donate what they are able or what they would like to pay. They are also encouraged to “pay it forward” by giving an hour of service, either at The Table or elsewhere in the community.

Schur said The Table attracts a number of local college students as well as people who are in between jobs.

“You can get a nutritional, hot meal no matter how much money you have,” he said.

But it’s the intentional community created by strangers sitting around a common table that makes The Table special.

“If it was just [the food], we’d just be opening another soup kitchen,” he said. “Here, you can sit and get to know people you might not otherwise.”

Schur said in this era of technology-based communication, people are not only more connected than ever before, but also more disconnected from one another.

“So many of these things put up barriers between people,” he said. “It’s about the face-to-face communication.”

There are “regulars” who have started coming to The Table, many of whom have wildly divergent backgrounds, who engage each other and new customers in discussion.

“It’s sort of expected here that you’re going to start up a conversation,” Schur said.

Schur explained that the idea for launching The Table came while a group from Our Saviour’s was studying the book “Emerging Ministry: Being Church Today” by Nathan Frambach. It become clear to the study group that rather than discuss the book within the church’s walls, it would be better to get out into the community, he said.

It was around that time that Our Saviour’s senior pastor, Lowell Hennigs, heard about the SAME Café on the radio.

“He asked the group, ‘Why not here?’” Schur said.

Response to the idea has been overwhelmingly positive. Two local businesses – “The Cup” and “Bread and Cup” – stepped forward to provide the soup and bread at cost. The members of Our Saviour’s purchased soup warmers. The owners of Indigo Bridge Books offered free space and advertising, viewing The Table as an extension of their ministry in the community. Since The Table’s opening, a local potter has stepped forward to provide handmade soup bowls.

According to Ben Larson, an intern at Our Saviour’s who volunteers at The Table, the endeavor has been able to bring in more money than it costs. The excess revenue is being placed in a fund to help support The Table’s potential future as a free-standing nonprofit entity.

Larson also said some consideration has been given to expanding The Table’s offering in the future to include pizzas and salads.

In the meantime, Schur says The Table will continue to practice its brand of ministry through establishing authentic community.

“The church should be the one institution in the world that exists for the sake of those who don’t belong to it,” he said. “And that’s what we were hoping for with The Table.”

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