Our Values
Every Table is a community celebrating life as a journey of embodied reconciliation.
As a community formed specifically by and for LGBTQIA+ people who’ve experienced marginalization at the hands of the church, we’ve been told again and again that our identities are incompatible with being part of a community of faith. We reject that notion in all its forms, and instead lead with our queerness. We know what it is to be told we are unworthy of love, and our experiences have taught us of the unshakeable resilience that is formed when you refuse to deny who you are, and find the abundance of love that is not something to be earned, but to be discovered.
We are in Richmond, Virginia, a city that once was the capital of the Confederacy, with wounds made to separate us by race, class, and gender. We carry within us its complex history. Yet, through community and radical honesty we are cultivating a space for healing and transformation, not only for ourselves, but for the world. Our liberation is interwoven with all of creation.
Community is the cornerstone of Every Table. We cannot exist without each other. Learning to live in right relation with our neighbor is as essential as learning to be in right relation with ourselves and all of creation.
If we are to embody reconciliation, we need to live in right-relation with our neighbor who builds our car, who makes our clothes, who stumbles vacant-eyed on the side of the road. Capitalism makes it impossible for us to do that. We can’t change the world if we don’t change our behaviors.
Capitalism is a system that assigns the value of a person based on their capacity to contribute to the economy.
Money is a concept devised by humans. Using a capitalist model to determine salaries in a church context is idolatry.
Capitalism functions on supply and demand rather than on the very real human bodies functioning at every point along the chain from supply to demand.
Embodied reconciliation can only happen in the body. As such, Every Table prioritizes the bodies of those participating in a few key ways:
Creating a pay scale prioritizing the body of the person in the role. As all employed staff will have bodies, all staff will have a base salary of $65,000 / year with full pension and benefits. From there, an increase in salary will be determined based on the impact of tasks required in the position on the body of the person performing those tasks.
Incorporating various healing modalities as a central part of the life of the new worshiping community, including: chanting, yoga, mindfulness, meditation, and reiki.
An abolitionist approach to living in community, which will include practices for reconciliation and repair with ourselves and one another, and with the community which are beyond a punitive way of being.