The Singles Forum Hosts a Church Potluck! (Everyone From Every Area of the Forum is Welcome!)

Oh! I'll do the security. No one wants to make a sasquatch angry.

Maybe we can convince someone to bring an extra bowl of banana pudding (with extra vanilla wafers) to bribe, er, I mean, connive, uh, talk someone else into testing all the fish and pork contenders.

As a country deeply rooted in Lutheranism, I can't recall having such a thing as potluck, we have a tradition of church coffee. Privately we do have spleiselag, as we call it. There I can bring a quiche Lorraine, some salads or a nice chocolate cake (probability brownies or sacher torte)

Yes, yes. Trick, I mean.... "Suggest" someone try them out.

Brownies you say? Gonna have to taste test those. For safety reasons of course.

They should be eatable. I am sending a virtual over as I type.

This is interesting.

I'm wondering if it's just an American church culture phenomenon, and even more specifically, only certain denominations (Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal? any others?) and, if it's only in the USA (do Canadian Lutheran churches hold potlucks?!)

I'd really love to hear from other people about what where they are located, what kind of church they attended/are in now, and what those churches do for congregation-wide fellowship.

Nothing like some good cultural lessons to go with that pot roast and vanilla wafer banana pudding!

I grew up in Pentecostal and Assemblies of God churches. As best as I can remember, they only did potlucks to raise funds for the church by charging people to eat the food that they brought. It always seemed a bit weird to me when the pastor would ask my mother or grandmother to bring food and then charge them to eat at the potluck lol. Imagine struggling to have enough food at home and then the pastor asks you to go buy food, cook it, and then charges you to eat it. Smh.

Wow.

Ok, this is a super interesting discussion to me.

I obviously only have my own background/history with potlucks and the ones I remember as fellowship events were free-for-all as long as you brought-a-dish-to-pass. And it's not like they turned you away if you didn't bring anything.

Now they definitely had fund-raiser food events, but those were things like bake sales, pancake breakfasts, and spaghetti suppers where some of the food was donated towards the cause, and people were asked to donate at will.

When too many people started treating the fundraisers as a free-for-all buffets for their entire families, they started selling tickets or asking for specific amounts for the donations (per person.)

Alas...

The age-old fight between church, food, and funds.

I’ve been turned down for my gator stew recipe before so I don’t think I’m going to bring it to any potluck.😂

I grew up A/G as well! But if we had a potluck, it was for fellowship. It wasn’t a regular thing. Maybe a couple of times a year.

P.S. my banana pudding has wafers.

Indeed. The churches may have done free potlucks when I was a little kid and I'm just not remembering them. The only ones I can remember happened when I was around 11+ years old and the churches barely had any attendees. I assume they were struggling to pay the bills so they asked people to pay for the food. Though the church I'm remembering doing that also is the main reason I never wanted to be a Christian when I was younger. They mostly preached about how everyone's going to hell unless they repent and pay tithes. I can go on some more about this but I think I deviated enough from the potluck.

What's this???!!!

NO GATER STEW!!!??

Dave and Winston are immensely disappointed... and their day is now ruined -- even though Winston is a vegetarian.

(For anyone who watches "Report of the Week" on YouTube, "immensely disappointed... and my day is now ruined," is a meme of the description used in the host's most infamous fast food review.)

I've always wanted to try alligator. feel free to bring the dish and I'll taste test for poisons.

P.S. When you have a hankering to make it, do you wrestle the gator yourself?!

No, no, feel free to tell us anything that comes to mind.

I might write these threads for fun, but part of their purpose is to bring about interesting discussions exactly like this.

I've had many, many times when I was -- and still am -- disillusioned by what I saw going on in church as well and I encourage people to share their stories -- so hopefully we can all heal, or as least work through our hurts through friendships -- and move forward in God's grace together.

Hmm. Now that I think about that specific church, a lot of bad things happened there. When I was a little kid and during one of my parents break ups, my dad had an affair with the pastors wife. Turns out she slept with a lot of the congregation. Next pastor as far as I can recall is the doom and gloom preacher of everyone going to hell and he also embezzled a lot of the money so the building went without repairs and the bills didn't get payed. Next pastor struggled to pay the bills and was also a doom and gloom guy that charged for the potluck even though most people that went there were struggling financially. There was a guest speaker that was praying over people and "slaying them in the spirit". I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time and was depressed and contemplating suicide but decided to pray hoping for some change. The dude comes over to me and tries to push me down with his hand on my head. Naturally that instantly brought me out of my prayer and made me mad but I was also kind of laughing in my mind because the dude was maybe 5'4-6 and I was 6'4. So he was struggling to touch my head. That went on for a good few minutes before I looked him in the eyes and he went away. I think the only thing positive from the church was I met my best friend there.

It’s eatable.

Does it taste like chicken though? Or is it fishy? Now I don't want to know. If I know then I won't try it.