For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World

by Emily M.D. Scott

Emily Scott never planned on becoming a pastor. But when she started a church for misfits that met over dinner in Brooklyn, she discovered an unlikely calling--and an antidote to modern loneliness.

As founding pastor of St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York, where worship takes place over a meal, Emily Scott spent eight years ministering to a scrappy collective of people with different backgrounds, incomes, and levels of social skills. Each week they broke bread, sang hymns, made halting conversation with strangers, then did the dishes. But in a city where everyone lives on top of one another yet everyone is lonely, these gatherings filled a longing that most people--even Scott--didn't realize they felt.

With tenderness and humor, Scott weaves stories and reflections from the life of her unlikely congregation. Recalling her journey as a single woman and a pastor looking for love and friendship in a city of millions, she discovers how small acts of connection hold more power than we realize in a time when our differences are being weaponized, and creates activism and justice work fueled by empathy and relationship. For All Who Hunger articulates the value of church as a place where people can hear not only that they are loved but that they are good. When members of Scott's congregation build relationships with their neighbors in one of the world's most unequal cities, they find courage and resources to begin working for a more just world.

For All Who Hunger is a story about a God whose love has no limits and a faith that opens our eyes to the truth. There's a place for you at the table.

Advance praise for For All Who Hunger

"In this intimate and openly heartfelt debut memoir, Scott explores the power of faith and community as strength-building resources for navigating difficult times. . . . She's equally relatable and forthright in exposing her own vulnerabilities and loneliness as a single woman living in the city along with her responsibilities and insecurities ministering to the needs of her congregants. . . . Scott delivers a moving personal memoir and an accessibly reverent meditation on finding faith through unconventional acts of worship. Highly inspiring for anyone seeking solace in our modern world." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality, Theology, Christianity, Church

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2020

Reviews

[Richard Propes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was only a few pages into Emily M.D. Scott's "For All Who Hunger: Searching for Communion in a Shattered World" when I realized that I'd already become quite fond of the somewhat nerdy, incredibly intelligent, and richly human Lutheran pastor who started a dinner church in New York City called St. Lydia's Dinner Church and served as its founding pastor for several years.

"For All Who Hunger" is about that journey, but it's also about more than that journey. It's about Scott's own journey through the loneliness of feeling different, starting a church, desiring companionship, and ultimately searching for the same communion that she so passionately wished to provide for her congregants.

I loved every moment of "For All Who Hunger" and can honestly confess I grieved its ending because it felt like the end of a relational journey with an imaginary friend who'd become very real to me. I don't know Scott, but I felt like I did by the end of the book and "For All Who Hunger" immersed me in her occasionally inspiring and occasionally awkward yet nearly always awesome spiritual journey.

The book starts with warmth, such incredible warmth, as we become engaged with Scott's love for the congregants who gather with her and trust her with their spiritual lives. You can feel it, really feel it, that Scott feels so incredibly privileged by that trust that I sit here with a tear running down my face even recalling her words.

In every book that I truly love, and I truly love "For All Who Hunger," I find some person or place or thing with which I connect on a soulful level. I must confess that in this book it was a delightful older woman named Ula, who found herself always embraced by the community of St. Lydia's despite being, at times, persnickety and difficult and all those other labels we like to use for people who've been unloved for so long that they don't know how to respond when love knocks on their door and refuses to go away until they answer.

I'm a paraplegic/double-amputee with spina bifida with a chaotic faith journey that includes having been raised Jehovah's Witness and having been kicked out of two different churches including the aforementioned JW's. Just three months ago, I lost the remainder of my left leg following hospitalization for dehydration and infections and am inching back ever so closely to going back to work. I identified greatly with Ula's spirit and I resonated deeply with Scott's passion for her and the difficulty in leaving as I sit here facing the loss of my own pastor, the delightful Rev. Anastassia, who sat with me for two hours prior to my most recent amputation simply holding the hand of someone with a fear of touch and gently refusing to let go.

I admired Scott's weaving together of both her intellect and her tremendous sensitivity throughout "For All Who Hunger," most admiring the vulnerability with which she wrote about her desires for relationship and her experiences in exploring the worlds of dating and sexuality while also living as a Lutheran pastor who, as it just so happens, also happens to be a human being.

There is simply so much to love about "For All Who Hunger," a book that beautifully shares the St. Lydia's journey from beginning up until Scott's departure. She currently serves in Baltimore as the pastor of Dreams and Visions, a church she also founded.

Scott beautifully and honestly shares the successes and not so successful moments of her church planting journey, while also eloquently bringing to life its personal, emotional, and spiritual impact for her. She is transparently self-aware and yet equally adept at sharing knowledge, theological insights, biblical exegesis, and inspirations from other philosophical and theological figures.

While "For All Who Hunger" has lessons for all interested in church life and church planting, it will likely most resonate with those who have a more open and affirming theology as St. Lydia's was and remains an LGBTQIA open and affirming congregation and, at least it would appear, Scott remains committed to ministry to the nerds, misfits, outcasts, and others who are so often left behind by organized religious bodies.

With remarkable honesty, insight, strength, and vulnerability, Scott has crafted a warm and wonderful book that serves as a spiritual memoir but also a reminder of the ability of a pastor and of a church to serve and be communion in a shattered world that so desperately craves it.

[Stephanie Gannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Grace shows up, not in the ways we try to hold it together, but when we finally let go.” I was a congregant at St. Lydia’s during my three years of seminary and felt so blessed to have stumbled upon this intimate sacred community that held me during a period of personal rebirth and transformation. In her well-crafted memoir, Emily beautifully weaves together her own story of loneliness, grief, and hunger with that of her emergent urban congregation that became so successful a model for how to do dinner church.

Something sacred and healing happened around those tables each week. In a ritualistic yet refreshing way we shared our own stories as reflections on the Gospel stories Emily preached about and lit candles and sang and prayed together. During a time of great stress and theological seeking in my own life, I was grateful to be an integral part of a spiritual community that embodied the love, intimacy, justice, and grace I wasn’t fully aware I needed.

[Pearl · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you drop the creeds and the vestments from the church, what’s left? Do you even still have church? You can read Emily Scott’s book to decide for yourself.

Scott is a Lutheran minister (ELCA) who was searching not only for the essence of church but for her own essence as well, although she didn’t quite realize it at the time. A recent graduate of Yale Divinity School and a liturgist in a large church in New York City, she knew churches were asking how they could bring more people from the outside world into the church. What, she wondered, would happen if we took the church into the outside world instead?

This personal and very engaging memoir is her answer to that question. Scott began holding church services, focused on dinner, in a storefront surrounded by public housing in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Not the dinner of a wafer and a sip of wine in the traditional Eucharist but a full meal around tables with dishes to do afterward. Yes, they had bread and wine too. Her congregation, very small at first, included the needy, the nerdy, a few seminarians, a few agnostics, gay, straight, trans, physically challenged, artists and more. A diverse group, they formed a community in New York City where few know their neighbors let alone has a connection with them. In a big city where lonely people are longing for connections, not the least of whom is Scott herself, they made connections around a common meal and discovered a different way of understanding theology.

They learned about the need to translate their faith into direct social action. During the eight years that Scott led this church (St. Lydia’s), Hurricane Sandy hit New York exposing the way relief was doled out and who got it last; they heard about the police violence against Michael Brown and so many others, which seared their conscience; and, perhaps most important of all, they learned about the violence and discrimination that took place in their own neighborhood (Gowanus Housing Projects). And they glimpsed grace and transcendence, even if only fleetingly. She tells the story of Jesus joining Cleopas and an unnamed friend on the road to Emmaus, although they do not know he is the resurrected Jesus. But whoever he is, they feel safe and comfortable with him. They invite him to share dinner with them. There’s a loaf of bread. He takes it and blesses it and in that moment they recognize him. Then he is gone. When he leaves, they don’t have much to hold on to: just a few moments of transcendence, of recognizing that Jesus was beside them. It might not always feel like enough, Scott tells her congregation, but it is what we have.

Scott seamlessly interweaves her own loneliness, her own longing for connection with the story of building a church community- separate stories but both told with honesty and intimacy. Not all of her church events worked. It was too cold for the Christmas pageant they planned for out-of-doors. Sometimes hardly anyone showed up and she cringed with shame and embarrassment. On a personal level, she experienced how many first dates don’t lead to a second date, when she tells them she is a minister. She puts her vulnerabilities out there and shares them with humor and tenderness. She credits the many people who helped her along the way. She’s a wonderful writer and she has written a lovely and heartfelt book. It is a book for all who hunger and even for those who might feel satisfied.

[Sara Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. The gist of these feelings is that while I don't agree with Emily's theology in several places, I loved her writing and her transparency and feel like disagreeing with her is akin to criticizing a friend.

For All Who Hunger is the story of a church and the story of a church planter, but it's more than that. It's a story of someone who loves God. It's the story of someone who loves people and wants them to know they all matter to God. It's the story of the struggle inherent to someone determined to follow Jesus while seeing the world as it is. And it's a lot more than I can put into words.

Emily's writing made me feel like I was there with her, listening to her over a cup of coffee or reading her journal entry from last night. That is not something I often feel when reading a book. It is also not a conversation I am used to hearing and wished I could have more like it. The beauty of a book is that it acts as a pause in a conversation. Emily's book disrupted my thoughts and showed me a different way of seeing the world. I need more conversations like that, but too often they are impossible to have because we are so polarized in politics, faith, and social arenas. For that, I am thankful to Emily. She allowed me to listen to her story, her world, her experience. And even if we never see eye-to-eye, I hope to have more conversations and hear more stories like hers that challenge my worldview and remind me how much God truly loves the world.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and have reviewed it willingly.

[Cara Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I'm so glad someone finally told Emily M.D. Scott that she's a writer. For those who love spiritual memoirs, this is true spiritual memoir, with just enough God + just enough spirituality + just enough gritty stories of a particular period to back it up.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Creating something new was not a process of building or forcibly making, but of gestation. While the world was dominated by masculine notions of construction, my work was a silent, mysterious drawing together. I knit you together in your mother's womb, someone once said. The words echoed through history until someone else penned them on parchment in the poetry of the Psalms. The verse speaks of a God who weaves something new as cells split and divide and multiply in the dark and cavernous space inside us. Artists and writers know this place--a secret, soft cave of impulse and intuition.”

I have been paying attention to Scott and St. Lydia’s Church (https://stlydias.org/) for many years. I have heard Scott speak and read her blog and sermons. When I found out that she had a book contract I was very excited. She did not disappoint me. This is a wonderful book. There are several stories within. Of course, there is the story of how St. Lydia’s came to be. But there are also tales about some of the members and Scott’s own journey of faith. As a Christian, I am grateful for all the narratives in this lovely book. I am grateful that Scott tells stories that are respectful, honest and full of faith.

I still want to visit St. Lydia’s, but Scott is no longer there. She lives closer to me now, in Baltimore and her new church plant, Dreams and Visions (https://www.dreamsandvisionsbaltimore...) is also intriguing. It is good to have a church planter who doesn’t even see the box. I hope, that once COVID-19 has been conquered, I can get to worship with Dreams and Visions. In the meantime, I may revisit this memoir.

[J. Huber · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has struggled with my identity as a religious person, this memoir spoke powerfully to my experience and hope for the kinds of religious spaces that might come to exist. Scott tells the story of founding Saint Lydia's, a church in Brooklyn that meets over a shared meal. Strangers find their way through the door, make connections inside, and then find their way out to the surrounding neighborhood and city beyond to make connections there.

Woven in with all of this is Scott's own search for more connection in her own life. She basically built the church she herself needed and found that others needed it too. The writing is spectacular. Here's one little snippet:

***

“In a city of glimmering lights and cracked sidewalks, every soul, whoever they may be, in an unguarded moment when their children are sleeping in bed, or when they hear the subway rumble deep underground, or when they catch sight of the skyline pink and flushed at twilight, will allow the brusque manner or affected laugh to slip away from their shielded hearts and remember, as if in a dream, that there is something they are searching for that they have not yet found.”

***

Anyway, it was both powerful and a pleasure to read. I think it would be a great reading-group book, as Scott touches on so many aspects of contemporary life with sensitivity and nuance, and there's much to talk about here in addition to the writing.

Highly, highly recommended.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pairs well with Take This Bread by Sara Miles. Books about food and faith are my favorite.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5 stars

[Cody Boteler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel truth meets beautifully written memoir. The way Emily Scott weaves together her personal stories — her bad dates, her struggle to find a physical space for a church, her sojourns to Alaska and Asheville — with insightful analysis of scripture and the stories we tell from scripture are, is, in a word, incredible.

The book transitions from personal memoir to spiritual reflection with ease, over and over and over again. Truth is found in both parts.

Scott’s prose is clear and strong; the way she pulls the message of God and God’s love out of her experiences with St. Lydia’s is poetry.

Parts of the book are laugh-out-loud funny. Conversations are recreated in ways that are real and honest and will make you laugh.

And importantly, the writing never loses sight of the book’s central message: God has a big, big table set, and there is enough bread for everyone.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

TRIPLE DISCLOSURE: (1) I have a pre-existing relationship with Emily which is more like father-daughter and less like reader-author. (2) My daughter-by-birth figures significantly in this story; she was one of the founding members of St Lydia's Church. (3) I pastored an alternative church for over twenty years in which we celebrated Good Friday in a members' home, kept the feast of Saint Mary Virgin in a city park, packed our altar and holy paraphernalia around in a rental trailer, struck new fire on Easter Eve in a parking lot, and held church in a senior center. Other than that, I am a perfectly and completely objective reader. This is the story of a very bright young woman who felt lonely in one of the largest cities in the world. Surrounded by a dense crush of people, she felt alone. That loneliness was a clue to how to kindle a church in New York City. Saint Lydia's church cured a lot of loneliness. She describes their liturgy and their life in a parallel between food and faith. This is a good thing to do; Jesus did it often. I love the way she weaves Holy Scripture through the whole story -- Scott's and the church's -- like a bright-coloured yarn in a grey Harris tweed. I love the way she connects her story to the congregation's story to the neighbourhood's story. In her passion for justice for the poor and the oppressed and in her anger at the injustices suffered by innocent people, Scott is too hard on "judges and lawyers." Her assessment fails to consider that it was judges and lawyers who created the right to appointed counsel for impoverished accused, the right to marry for LGBT people, and the exclusion of illegally-seized evidence from criminal trials. Perhaps those judges and lawyers were not so bad. A great deal of courage was necessary to write a book like this; the depth of self-disclosure is more than most authors could bear. Perhaps that says something about the people who need to be the next generation of leaders of the Christian church.

[Marja Coons-Torn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving story

This is a lovely, moving, and thoughtful book. I felt like I knew Emily Scott by the time I finished it. Emily got me to remember some of my dreams, and to think about where I am in my life and how I got here. This is really worth the time to read.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for all the warm fuzzy feels that come with fully loving your neighbor like Jesus would, look no further!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enough

And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry

"I know in a different way now that my mom won't be here forever, and I pray a desperate, fevered prayer, God please just give us a few more years. There's too much I'll regret if we lose her now. . . . When I arrive, there is a tenderness in the house I've never experienced. A certain awareness of our fragility, unacknowledged until now. We treat each other like precious objects, like family relics nested in cotton that we must be careful not to lose or break" (123).

"Perhaps we all reach a moment in life when we're given the chance to shatter the death-dealing constraints clamped on ourselves or others. When, despite the relentless grind of dehumanizing limitations, we rise, breaking windows and scaling flagpoles, showing everyone who witnesses our ascent that there's a different way. The photographs capture only the climax: a window broken, a flag in a woman's fist. But they don reveal the fear, trepidation, and uncertainty that qualify the time before and after. The tedium of planning, the in-fighting among allies, the terror of yielding yourself and your body to handcuffs and prison and the mercy of a network of judges and lawyers for whom you are only a name on a list.
"These moments are racked with the daily hopes and fears that every life is burdened with, made up of seconds ticking by and small decisions made, premeditated or on impulse. Anyone who's ever done anything extraordinary is ordinary. But when the moment comes, they say yes, and God's realm comes beaming through" (168-9).

"With the irony that is indicative of the Gospel, redemption starts not with self-improvement, but by looking straight at the most broken, twisted part of ourselves and simply saying, 'I'm a mess.' What a relief, to remember that we can't fix ourselves on our own. That, in fact, we're not even fixable--but impossibly, we are loved" (171-2).

"In New York, I've been single for what feels like an eternity. It too, is grinding. . . . One evening I'm getting ready for one of those dates with a mustached anarchist. I go to the closet to change into something more presentable and feminine. All week I've been hiking and horseback riding and wearing nothing but beat-up jeans and T-shirts. I take a skirt out of the closet and hold it up. Unexpectedly, a feeling of revulsion rolls through me. I put it back" (200).

"I started to shed my skin. I slough off layers of bad dates and rejection, guys who never called back or physically recoiled from me when I uttered the word 'pastor.' I shed expectations about how pretty I need to be. I shed the idea that no one will want me if I don't pluck my eyebrows, fit into a size six, or laugh and smile and look through my lashes when he explains thing to me I already understand. In town where I know just a handful of friends of friends, I let the layers fall away.
"I don't think I ever put on a dress again" (201).

"I have memorized this photograph. It is a picture of freedom after years of striving. . . .Though two thousand years of church teachings imply that what we've done is wrong, I know in the deepest hollow of my gut, the place from which God so often speaks to me, that it is good.
"I have this photograph, of a woman unburdened by fear or commitment, transcendent with joy. She has hastened to the mountain and touched the holiness of God" (202-203).

"Back home in Brooklyn, I find my revulsion toward dresses unchanged. My closet is stuffed with flared skirts and flowery prints. I liked them well enough. But now, when I hold them to my body in the mirror, they feel like costumes.
"Every day I burrow through my closet to find something that doesn't have a ruffled sleeve. I usually end up in jeans and a fitted blazer. I find myself searching for men's shoes in smaller sizes on the Web, and order a pair of blue oxfords with bright laces. When they arrive, I take them straight out of the box and change into them. Standing up and looking in the mirror, I break into a smile. For the first time, maybe ever, everything feels exactly right" (203-204).

"They need not go away; you give them something to eat" Matthew 14:16
"Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it" (Flannery O'Connor, on the Eucharist).
"The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live" (Joy Harjo).
"We will fight for you instead,/side by side with the others,/with everyone who knows hunger" (Pablo Neruda)
"Love lives again, that with the dead has been;/Love is come again like wheat arising green" (Johhn M. C. Crum)

[Kate Belt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scott, an ELCA minister, plants new churches of the nontradtional variety. Her ideas, writing, and actions flow in a similar vein to Sara Miles in Take This Bread and Rebecca Solnit in A Paradise Built in Hell. This memoir, nurtured by the love and friendship of Nadia Bolz-Weber and the late Rachel Held Evans, tells of her founding St. Lydia's Dinner Church in the Gowanus neighborhood of NYC and also reveals some intimacies of her personal life. This is a marvelous time to read the stories that remind us that speaking truth to power is our work, and it works, and its our job to keep hope alive and don't quit. I happened to read today on Good Friday this passage that spoke strongest to me. "I’ve got it under control. Then my mom got sick, and I didn’t have it under control at all. There was nothing I could do to achieve my way through this situation. No way I could work harder to change her outcome. Then the hurricane hit, and I didn’t have it under control. Then Trump got elected. Then your sister was deported. Then the cops shot your son, your daughter, and didn’t even get taken off payroll. Then the rent gets raised or the job falls through. Then the sky goes dark and the fabric of life is rent in two. Around you, the city is falling. On those Good Fridays, it is God, not we, who stitches us back together. And God offers not a bunker that will provide imagined safety, but a road to walk: uncertain and exposed. Grace shows up, not in the ways we try to hold it together, but when we finally let go. Why do you look for the living among the dead? the angels ask." Disclosure; I received a free advance reader version of this book. #ForAllWhoHunger #NetGalley

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's an attraction to accounts of someone envisioning a new, fresh way to approach church, and Emily Scott shares just that in For All Who Hunger. This book outlines her experience in founding a dinner church in New York City. As Scott writes, "Church is not about transcending human things like warm food and chortling laughter. It is -- or should me -- about pointing to them as sacred. Our most human parts are also the most holy." 

St. Lydia's is a scrappy church with parishioners that haven't found a home elsewhere. Scott doesn't sugarcoat the experience. There are disappointments and heartache and human struggles, and dating as a single pastor is a revelatory experience, but through her transparency, I find myself drawn to the heart of this little congregation. When they envisioned wandering NYC as a walking nativity while Christmas caroling, the reality was filled with relatable human messiness, as the environment and the weather don't cooperate and spirits lag. 

Throughout Scott's time at St. Lydia's, she forges relationships and challenges others to be aware of the realities around them, of the aches faced by people of color in their community, of paying attention, of getting involved and remembering. As I read I found this reminiscent of Nadia Bolz-Weber and Rachel Held Evans, so it was no surprise to learn in the acknowledgements that Scott was friends with both. I was disappointed to learn Scott is no longer at the church she founded, that this was only a season, but it was a read that drew me in.

(I received a digital ARC copy from Convergent Books via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

[Jena Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the author tells us at the beginning of this book, “this is a memoir: a story about memories”. The author shares her journey of “searching for communion in a shattered world”. A young woman, she becomes a Lutheran minister, moves to New York and grows her vision of bringing people together. She’s a church planter. Her seed of an idea- Dinner Church.

Dinner church is my kind church. It’s what our world needs, fellowship, conversation, shared food, and shared stories, open to all. Author Scott is a Lutheran pastor. (If she had been a Baptist pastor, she would have known about covered dish or potluck suppers at church!)

To me, this book is at it’s best when we are with the author as she seeks a place for her church, as she awaits her first church “service”- will anyone come?- and as she tends to her fledgling group. She has a creative flair which brings together her congregation and also enriches the surrounding community. St. Lydia’s is the “right seed planted in the right soil at the right time.”

The memoir veers off into social issues and and politics and this part of the book loses its “memories” and becomes more “preachy”. While this may be important, it did not speak to me as much as the scenes of friends gathering to break bread together. I look forward to more stories from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and Convergent Books for an advance review copy. This is my honest review.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for those in and around the Christian world who yearn for celebration of diversity and who people really are - across racial/ethnic, gender ID, sexuality, economic and geographic lines. Rev. Scott is truly an empathetic wonder, and her simultaneous journey of church building and self-discovery, set against the backdrop of Christendom being dismantled for true communities of disciples are so needed for our times.

Particularly relevant for the current focus of us whites waking up to our responsibility in dismantling racism all around us. While we whites should center the voices, writings and lives of our Black neighbors as we do the work, this book is highly recommended for white Christians over some other "white books by and for whites" making the rounds. Especially the audiobook (which she reads herself!)

It's not all "about" racism, but because it is focused on building a church for those left behind in NYC, it inevitably runs right into revelation. Which is how it's gotta be for us white Christians - American racism has been here for centuries and it's still poisoning everything. Which means the potential for work is everywhere: in your backyard, your neighborhood, your city and county, and at any place you have influence. You can't do everything but you can continue to do something in your spheres of influence.

Highly recommended.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For all who Hunger" is aptly subtitled, "Searching for Communion in a Shattered World." With poetic storytelling and gentle truth-telling, pastor and church planter Emily Scott tells the story of the founding of a unique church in New York City. But this book is about so much more than the creation of a new group of people who gather weekly for Sunday service. Instead, Scott moves smoothly between different hungers: her congregants' hunger for connection with one another and with God, her own longing for love and belonging, and the broader community's hunger for racial justice. She doesn't sugarcoat the awkward or discouraging moments, but points to the Holy shining through all the cracks and imperfections, making all things new.

"For All Who Hunger" is a feast of hope, wisdom, and companionship for all who live in what Parker Palmer calls "the tragic gap" between the harsh realities of the world as it is and the goodness and life we imagine to be possible (http://www.couragerenewal.org/723/). This would be great to use in book discussion groups in a parish setting.
#NetGalley, #ForAllWhoHunger

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

In short, For All Who Hunger is a book about finding moments of meaningful togetherness amidst the loneliness.

But I didn’t know that at first. I walked into this book thinking that the author would be bragging about the trendy, offbeat church she created: “Look how cool and unique I am.” Instead, I found an author who had big doubts - not only about the church she envisioned - but about herself. She was incredibly vulnerable, and despite how surrounded by people she would seem to be in New York City, lonely.

The loneliness was what really stood out to me - but that’s possibly because I read this during COVID-19 and I’ve felt cut off socially from a lot of people. The author’s awkwardness was relatable to me, too. Emily Scott admits that she’s not always comfortable speaking in front of a crowd or having tough conversations about race, so it was nice to be reminded that pastors don’t always have the right words either.

So while it was a bit of a slow start for me, once I shed my preconceived notions about this book, I grew to really like it. I borrowed the book from my library and covered it in post-it notes to flag sections and lines I found meaningful.

Scott creates a church out of nothing - which sounds daunting! Finding an affordable place (in NYC, of all places!) to house the church, getting people to show up and participate, and having enough funding to take care of the constant maintenance sounds like a struggle. And in the midst of growing a congregation, Scott is also trying to date. Needless to say, her dates are always turned off when she reveals that she’s a pastor. In one passage, Scott laments, “I wonder why one half of my life is so full and the other half is so empty. It starts to feel like maybe God designed it that way. In which case I’m pretty mad at God.”

I found it fascinating to hear Scott’s account of post-Sandy clean-up. Living in Wisconsin means I’ve never had to prepare for a hurricane or deal with the damage afterward. Scott sees firsthand how different neighborhoods face different struggles. She volunteers in the housing projects near her church and realizes “The storm has revealed something I didn’t want to see.” She can’t ignore the inequality anymore. She becomes more involved with the people in her neighborhood and picks up the banner for racial justice. Watching as she goes about “learning in public,” as a friend tells her, is endearing, and makes me feel better as I try to learn and grow, too.

I’m wondering if there will be a second memoir in a few years, as Scott’s personal life felt like there was more story left to tell. I certainly wouldn't mind reading more of Scott's lovely writing.

[Heather Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Convergent Books for giving me a digital galley in exchange for feedback.

Emily Scott was the pastor of St. Lydia's, a church in Brooklyn that practices "Dinner Church." Dinner church meets in the evening, not the morning, and combines the tradition of communion with a loving community meal in a ritual that seems simultaneously very new, and very much what the earliest church did. St. Lydia's is also a small, caring community of people who feel alienated by traditional church, doing their best to figure out how to be a progressive church in their neighborhood.

In a lot of ways, St. Lydia's reminds me of my own church, so that was nice.

It's easy to see how much Scott is influenced by Nadia Bolz-Weber, but I really like Bolz-Weber, so that wasn't a problem for me while I was reading. I enjoyed reading her simple, tender stories of starting a new church and exploring new ways of being a church.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scott writes, "I have learned to wrestle with words. Some things are too important not to name." This seems to be the underlying theme of the book and, more importantly, the author's navigation of life, love and spirituality. While parts of this memoir are intimate looks into her own life, Scott seamlessly weaves the joys and heartaches experienced by her parishioners, community members and colleagues into the tapestry of her experiences. Our lives, and our search for meaning, love and belonging are inevitably tied to those with whom we choose to invest our time and our hearts. Scott challenges people of faith to take a stand on issues of justice, to open our eyes to those who are excluded, forgotten or marginalized, but most importantly to extend that same grace to ourselves. The reader is reminded - to love as Christ loved is not always a beautiful experience, but life is more beautiful when we choose to let love guide our steps, our hands and ultimately, our faith.

[Julia Alberino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to sit with this book for a while before rating it, such was its impact on me. Full disclosure: I know Emily Scott; I was at the virtual book launch; and I know some of the people who are mentioned in the book. So I had to objectively let all that not play into my rating and review. I wrote elsewhere that Emily has written a remarkable book for our time. She answers the questions "What if we were to strip religion down to its basics?" "What would that look like?" It would look very much like St. Lydia's, which Emily created here in New York City. This is a book that should be read by anyone who cares about others. The subtitle "Searching for Communion in a Shattered World" is particularly apt in the time in which we find ourselves at this very moment (the book was written before the pandemic and before the justified unrest following yet another racist killing). Read Emily's book and help create a better future.

[D.J. Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book via an internet search for narratives about communion (Eucharist communion). While this spiritual memoir did include narratives about that type of communion, it was also about those who hunger for communion of thoughts and feelings in, as the book title states, "a shattered world."

Easy read which I did not find confusing or disjointing as some readers felt, but then I'm accustomed to reading memoirs. I took away from this book not only both types of communion but also this idea of Dinner Church (which includes the two types of communion). Would my mom read it? My mom is quite traditional and not accustomed to progressive communities. Actually take away the progressive part of it, she doesn't read much spiritual non-fiction. But for those of you who might struggle with narratives about church in Brooklyn, New York, I've let you know. I'm glad I bought the book; I have bookmarks I'll be coming back to.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this because I'm interested in Food Ministry, but this was so much more. I hope I have the words to do this justice.

Emily Scott is young, bookish and open-minded. She takes us along as she starts up a ministry where her congregation shares a meal. It grows into an incredible community of outsiders, and it takes her and others out of isolation. As this is happening, she learns about the people around her, becomes deeply aware of her privilege and ministers to and brings together unlikely groups.

This book came to me at the perfect time, and is a timely book. While I'm delving into learning more about my privilege, she talks about the Black Lives Matter movement and the some of the faces behind the videos and horrible headlines. It was enjoyable to see her personal journey of understanding, even as I am a person of color, but I'm still learning too.

I wish I could explain how this book made me feel. It made my heart soar, I cried, I cheered.

[Sydney · Rating 3 out of 5]

"God is still in the heavens, even if our world feels upside down."

"Abundance is a secret hidden inside of scarcity. It lives, tucked inside not-enoughness, waiting to show you that God does not do math. Abundance is discovering God's provision right in the middle of your fret and worry."

"Deficiency and abundance can live side by side."

"Saying yes to God meant risking everything. The meager living she (Mary) and her husband would earn, their new life together, the possibility for better things. When Mary says yes, she abandons everything for God."

"Generally, our call makes us want to run like hell in the opposite direction."

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

For All Who Hunger, Emily Scott.

Insightful observations about the plight of the poor in New York. A book about the pioneering of St Lydia's Dinner Church, but also a memoir.

A sentence I liked, reflecting on Mary, Joseph and the star over Bethlehem: "Wise enough to be drawn toward the star and foolish enough to fail to understand what it means - that on the other end are both God and Herod, both divinity and genocide. We will be asked to follow that star places we never wished to go." (p86)

Also: "Jesus gathered people around tables, but he also sent them out on roads .. to travel an unknown path... along the way, though, there are tables." (p219)
...

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily Scott's memoir about church-planting in New York City beautifully describes her experiences in growing St. Lydia's and following Biblical principals in the modern world. She brings the Bible back to life, giving the familiar stories more humanity and significance, and she demonstrates the core messages of the Bible in her vision for her church. This book is inspirational and thought-provoking, and it is a must-read for anyone wanting to revisit the Bible from a new perspective.

Netgalley provided an advance copy for review.

[Steve Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former (attempted) church planter, this book refreshed my soul. It tells an incredibly honest story of the author's journey of bringing people together around the table, with the ups and downs, the lessons learned, and the wonderful humans who are encountered along the way. The St. Lydia's community has given me hope for years for what the church could, and should, be. For All Who Hunger only deepened that hope for me. For anyone who wants to feel encouraged about what it genuinely means to live as part of the Body of Christ, I highly recommend reading Emily Scott's book.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written story about a minister and her call to start a church with heart. This little church has Sunday eve services that are centered around sharing a meal. As they get on their feet, the need and desire to interact with their community grows on their hearts with social justice becoming front and center. Besides telling the story of the raising up of this church I feel like we also get a glimpse into the raising up of a young minister as she finds her voice and her passion fulfilled.