Our church in Las Vegas, Spring Meadows Church, has, for the past few years, tried to promote a sense of community and closeness among the members of the church. One of the ways has been what is known as Supper 8.
Supper 8 is a group of eight people who sign up & get together monthly to have a pot luck meal. Sign-up sheets are put out twice a year after church services. Interested? Sign up. The groups are divided up into 8 (hence the name) and these 8 decide on monthly dinners–what, whose house etc. And the groups are changed, every 6 months.
Shannon enjoying the Chianti Colli Senesi
This has been such a good way to get to know others in the church that you wouldn’t really get to talk to except for the:
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Good!”
typical exchanges that usually take place after church services all over the country on Sunday mornings.
David & Erin, whose house we went to, haven’t been here that long and since David has a job (doing technical repair for the Strip show “KA”) which requires him to work Sundays, he can’t even make the Sunday service . So this is one of the ways he can connect with everyone.
Enjoying the food & friendship
Our hosts made beef and chicken skewers with green pepper and pineapple chunks. They marinated the beef with A-1 sauce and the chicken with bar-b-que sauce. And then they grilled them. Sounds simple, right? They were delicious.
Chicken skewers
Kev and Shannon brought garlic Pita bread and a bottle of wine.
garlic Pita bread
We brought a salad, stuffed baked potatoes and another bottle of wine.
Chianti Colli Senesi---great!
Our bottle was one my daughter Maren bought in Florence at a farmer’s market, a Chianti Colli Senesi(Vendemmia 2006). A bright, fresh berry/cherry flavor with soft tannins and enough acidity for the food. This was a favorite of everyone.
Earlier in the afternoon I scrubbed, pierced and baked the potatoes (350 in the over for about an hour or until soft). Then I cut a ‘lid’ off the top of each and scraped out the interior with a spoon. This was combined with sour cream, butter, chives, Worcestershire, Tabasco, Lawry’s seasoned salt, cream cheese and horseradish.
Folding bacon pieces into the potato stuffing
Filling the potato shells
The re-stuffed potatoes were then baked before we ate at 400 degrees until they were hot and the cheese was melted. Spicy, cheesy and creamy….they were great.
After dinner, we sat and talked, planned our next
upper 8 at the end of October, played with Emma (3 yrs old), held Cari (2 ½ months old) and just enjoyed getting to know each other.
Have you ever joined a group like this and what was the best thing about it?
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