A re-post from our archives -
The Bird Dog family enjoys providing coffee hour at church. It's a gratifying ministry because it promotes fellowship. The more goodies you provide, the more fellowship you nurture, and the longer folks stick around and get to know eachother.
If a church is a manifestation of the living body of Christ, you can't have loose body parts all over the place: a congregation needs to congregate, in small groups and in large. Other churches in the area have copied our tradition of providing more than coffee and a pitiful bowl of goldfish crackers. We do brunch, essentially. Here is what we brought today:
Bagels and cream cheese; red and white grapes; plain pound cake, sesame pound cake, walnut pound cake; Vermont cheddar, brie, and Roquefort cheese and crackers; blanched carrots, broccoli, sugar snap peas and string beans with blue cheese dip; strawberries with sugar to dip them into (no matter how many you bring, they will disappear fast - the kids go for them like piranhas); cheese "Danish" pastries, tortilla chips with that excellent Costco salsa and Costco guacamole; corn muffins, chocolate chip muffins and blueberry muffins; croissants. Coffee, cider, and orange juice. I forgot to bring the sliced red peppers for the vegetable dip, and forgot the strawberry jam for the corn muffins.
I was surprised by how the blue cheese disappeared first today, and I brought a huge hunk. We don't bring doughnuts anymore because the little kids stuff themselves with them and the fussy parents don't seem thrilled with that. Next time, I think we'll bring a spiral-cut ham with honey mustard, and slice up a mountain of baguettes. This would be good with a ton of sliced melons. (Too bad we don't do wine and beer too - people would never go home.)