The Book Club

It is interesting to watch an organism grow. Start with an idea, add a few friends, meet, see how it goes. Some of us will read a book. Some of us won't. Discuss. Someone, single, starts to bring a little food to help the conversation. Someone, some drink. We start with the idle catch-up chit chat, but someone finally guides the conversation to the book.
A few new friends are added. Someone comes to visit, and doesn't come back. Some come and stick around. Something not unlike a tradition gets started. A few years pass. The Book Club starts watching movies now and then. This is not an INVITE YOUR FRIENDS! sort of organization. The balance is homegrown and subtle, not the sort of thing that grows with leaps and bounds.
It is a Christian small group, very Lutheran, reasonably Confessional. It isn't a Bible study, but the Word hovers in the air, and becomes incarnational when someone goes hunting for a passage.
Another year passes. Are we a supper club or a book club? Someone keeps bringing food. We eschew mere pizza; are now expecting greater things. Italian, Korean, the manifest east Asian buffets. But, inevitably, a sudden Fall into fried chicken. We are in fact a fried chicken kind of book club.
A pastor goes, a pastor comes. This one is tall and always wears a suit. We add a scientist. We discuss global warming. We discuss global cooling. We look around and LO! We are all nerds!! How did this happen?