St. James invites you to join into an intentional practice of connection this Lent, by ‘giving up’ a little of our societal isolation and committing to having weekly fika with people you’d like to get to know better. Our society seems designed to keep us separate and divided.  What better way to bring healing than to intentionally come together!  

Studies show that most of us do not have 5-6 people in our immediate vicinity that we would feel comfortable calling when we need some kind of help or personal support.  Many of us do not know our immediate neighbors.  Many of us have lots of acquaintances - even at church - but are not sure it would be ok to really open up to them or invite them to open up to us.  This Lent, using the Monadnock Pod Mapping Tool, we’re going to take the opportunity to start to fill these gaps.

The adventure starts right before Lent on Monday, February 16 in the Jonathan Daniels Room.  We’ll gather at 6pm to learn about pod mapping and have dessert together.  Although it’s only Monday, this will be our Shrove Tuesday gathering, so it’s only right to bring a sweet, decadent treat to share. We’ll have some decaf coffee and tea on hand for a group fika.  

We’ll also watch watch Robert Putnam’s thought provoking documentary, “Join or Die,” which addresses societal isolation and how building better friendships and getting involved in group meetings (such as going to church) is a way to counteract it.  If you can’t make it to our group viewing, this documentary is also available on Netflix.

At the gathering, we’ll put our names in a hat, and pick out a random other person’s name to set up our first fika at a local coffee shop.  Then each week, we’ll all be challenged to put fika on our calendars with one other person from St. James (or elsewhere) that you’d really like to become better friends with.  Talk and connect, using our list of helpful starter questions or questions of your own.  A good fika doesn’t have to take more than an hour, but you might lose track of time because it’s pretty enjoyable.

You may be asking, “Do I have to fika every week?”  If you feel like this is a big ask, well, remember that this is Lent, and sometimes you have to stretch a little to practice Lent.  Consider what you could ‘give up’ to make time for a friend each week.  We think once you get started you might even want to meet with people more than once a week!  Support and discussion about how it’s going will be available in the couch corner each week at our usual fika - coffee hour.

And as Lent draws to a close, we’ll all meet together on Palm Sunday with a special potluck to talk about how this all went for us after the service.