Table for one? by Stewart Perry
Our family, well 3 out of 4 of us, has just returned from a 2 week holiday in Japan, our first time visiting the country. We had a great time & particularly loved the food. We knew we liked Japanese food before we left but didn’t appreciate the breadth & diversity of what we had on offer. There are so many different types of ramen, & so many different things you can put on a skewer! It was fascinating to experience that you could very easily source your breakfast, lunch & dinner along with the beverages of your choice from the closest convenience store & the affordability, quality & freshness was exceptional.
One of the things that did surprise me as we ate out in restaurants across 4 cities, was the percentage of restaurant space that was set aside for solo dining. A lot of restaurants had long benches set for one person dining with many of them having partitions between each space. Some restaurants we walked into, we had to walk straight out of because there was either no tables for the 3 of us to sit together or the few tables that were allocated to “group dining” were taken. I’d not experienced this in any other Asian country we’ve visited.
It’s not unusual for me to dine alone. If I’m traveling by myself I’m happy to go somewhere & sit at a table by myself. If I duck across the road to the Robina Town Centre for lunch & decide not to bring it back to my desk to eat, I’ll happily sit at a table in the food court by myself, sometimes with my AirPods in listening to a podcast while I eat. When I do this all of the tables have at least one other space for someone to sit with me.
I didn’t learn enough about Japanese culture in 2 weeks to qualify me to make a judgment on their society. I could see rational explanations for dining alone. Space is a premium in the big cities, kitchens are generally small, food is more affordable to buy out than in Australia. There was a lot I could rationalise… also restaurants don’t provide those types of dining options if there’s no demand for it otherwise they’d go out of business. But it did unsettle me because it reminded me of the erosion of community, increase in isolation & emphasis on individuality that we are witnessing in our culture.
Eating is one of life’s essentials, we don’t have to eat together to survive… but it made me wonder whether eating together can help us to thrive.
The statistics on church growth in the UK from the “Quiet Revival” report which has seen church attendance of young people between the ages of 18 & 24 rise from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2025 has seen many from a generation that was growing up in the most isolated season of the Western World’s history, the Covid-19 pandemic, start to crave community. Many have found this in the Church. Many however have & will still resist because there is such a dominant narrative in our world that we don’t need anyone but ourselves, my success has nothing to do with yours, we should all be able to live our personal truth & our best lives… as long as we don’t impinge on anyone else’s “right” to live their best life.
I continue to hope & pray that the Church will be a beautifully compelling alternate way of being in this world of individualism & isolationism. Because followers of Jesus know that our best lives are lived when we are in relationship with Jesus and with each other.
As the 3 individual churches in Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach & Robina we’ve begun a journey of recognition that we are actually better together. The strength of one community can be shared with the weakness of another, the gifts & character of one community complement & complete a picture of community that is not possible when we isolate ourselves from each other. The goal of us working collaboratively is not to end up with a “homogenous product”, rather it is to express the richness & diversity of the kingdom of God and God’s people the Church.
Churches have so many opportunities to meet, share & gather together. We are called to to do life together. I know it can be easy to get sucked into the cultural narrative that we don’t need each other. I also know that it takes effort to put yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s easier to just worry about yourself & harder to worry about others. The benefit of that cost & effort, however, is that we grow, we transform & we become part of the growth & transformation of others. The reward of being part of that process is priceless.
Each week across each church there are opportunities to gather for a symbolic meal together as we share communion. It should however be a symbol of the community we embody throughout the rest of the week.
Can I encourage you, as you read the newsletter each week, as you hear the announcements on a Sunday or as someone mentions or invites you to “a something” in the life of the church, not to partition yourself off… but to join in. If you are part of “a something” in our church, don’t make it a holy huddle… invite others. Without you we are less of a community, it’s only together that we can become a beautifully compelling alternate way of being in the world.