November 2006

I realize that I have come to an "eating" congregation. Here at Mindekirken, we eat together all the time! We have many excellent cooks. At Tuesday Open House a wonderful luncheon is served, where more than a hundred people are nourished every week. Mindekirken serves very good vaffles, they just cannot be better!

Every Sunday we invite the congregation to stay for church coffee. I like this very much. Also in Norway, I tried to encourage the congregations where I served to have church coffee more often, and it worked!

A few weeks ago, Alle Kvinner Mission invited us to a Rømmegrøt Luncheon. If the room could have seated double today’s capacity, they might have sold 400 tickets. The food was of high quality, and everybody seemed to enjoy the meal.

My wife and I have been invited by members of Mindekirken as their guests to Lakselaget and Torskeklubben, and to private homes. We still get invitations for luncheons and dinners, and we enjoy it very much. All these meals are very popular, and from our point of view, they welcome the newcomers!

A special reason why I as a pastor favor these meals, is that it is very Biblical to eat together! We read about the first Christians in Acts 2:46 that "they ate together with glad and sincere hearts". Also, when Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven, he pictures it as a banquet, or a wedding meal.

In our time, as more and more human beings live alone in "one person families", the church has an important task, to offer fellowship around the table.

As some of you know, we come from the Møre coast of Norway. That is the area of fiords and ferries. On the ferries, they sell a dish that now has become very popular, both among the local people, and tourists. Even more popular than vaffles. It is called "svele". In other parts of Norway, they call them "lapper". It is like a small pancake, but thicker, more porous, and not as heavy. People in Møre make a lot of them in their homes, and serve them for coffee. Hopefully we will be able to find the needed ingredients, so that my wife and I can contribute to all the good food at Mindekirken by adding "svele" to the menu.

Per Inge Vik

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716