Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

There’s a really great cartoon by Dave Walker called ‘The Church Kitchen.’ (Check him out at www.cartoonchurch.com, by the way, and make sure you click on the link ‘Using Cartoons’ and support his work.) It’s a simple line drawing of a kitchen in what we presume to be a parish house; there’s a stove, refrigerator, and sink, and the space is covered in notes, signs, and instructions … literally covered! ‘Do Not Slam this Door’ ‘Do Not Lean Chopping Boards Here’ ‘Do Not Leave Hymn Books on the Fridge’ ‘Do Not Bring Children into this Kitchen’

It’s not as funny as it is real.

I’ve been in a lot of church kitchens, and I really do thank God that our forebears gave us such good – if, in too many cases, way too large – facilities, and that so many of these spaces have pretty decent kitchens. Kitchens are great centers of activity and ministry. Just like, I’m guessing, every single party you’ve ever had in your own home, kitchens are places where people congregate – no matter whether the living room is bigger and has more comfortable seating. It’s in the kitchen that relationships are made, stories are shared, connections are formed and love, grown.

But in every church kitchen I’ve been, whether it’s a big city church or a small rural one, there’s no shortage of, let me just say, annoying, passive-aggressive, nagging signs. You know what they look like: ‘Your Mother Doesn’t Work Here,’ or ‘Do Not Leave Anything in this Refrigerator.’ Sometimes, they can be downright nasty.

The signs exist because churches are human communities, and members of our species can be somewhat messy, at times, and we’re certainly not all of the same opinion about standards of cleanliness. Add to that, we can also be nasty and brutish and unkind with one another. Things stay in the fridge too long and get moldy or someone thinks a pot should go here and not there.

But signs don’t help; in fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s true that my mother doesn’t work in my church kitchen – she’s happily retired and lives about 800 miles away – but the very presence of the sign telling me such seems to suggest that someone of Even Greater Authority than My Own Mother reigns supreme!

Do something good for your community, right now: go into your parish hall kitchen and take down the signs. Get rid of them, all of them. (And for the love of God don’t replace them with a sign announcing that you took the signs down!) I removed the last-standing Kitchen Notice, taped onto the stainless steel refrigerator, years ago and the signs, notices, placards and passive-aggressive nagging’s haven’t returned.

We’ve replaced the signs with an increased attention to relationships, honesty, truth-telling, and love. From time to time, in preparation for a church event, we need to do a cleaning out and we actually tell people, face to face, that we’re about to do so and we post news in the bulletin or newsletter announcing the date that’s going to happen. I’m also something of a neat freak, myself, and I probably use the kitchen more often than anyone else – heating a quick bowl of soup, say, or grabbing a drink – and I tend to do a quick sweep every week or so.

I, too, have been guilty of leaving something in the fridge for too long, or forgetting to wash my mug. And the best part is that someone told me, face to face, or I noticed it myself and took care of it. Relationships matter in the church. Relationships matter at every level of the church. That principle applies just as much to the passing of the peace and reconciling a disagreement at a vestry table as it does to how love and honesty are practiced when we’ve got to figure out which pots go where.