Sunday Dinners: Food, Family, and Faith from Our Favorite Pastors

Introduction

I’ve always enjoyed entertaining at home, but one Sunday brunch I prepared for friends several years ago set the pace for what has become a tradition among a close circle of friends—five couples, actually—who have become my second family in Houston.

We’d all gotten busy with family, work, and travel, and hadn’t gotten together as a group in some time. As we compared schedules it became clear that a Friday- or Saturday-night dinner out couldn’t happen for a while. Sunday became the go-to date, and because one husband in the group leaves town each Sunday evening for business, brunch was the obvious option.

With a date penciled in, I began planning my menu. During the week, I’m all about convenience for lunch and dinner, but on weekends—and when I entertain—everything has to be fresh and made from scratch. I planned a huge meal with baked French toast (my mother-in-law’s recipe), cheese grits (a recipe from a former co-worker), quiche (a recipe clipped from the Houston Chronicle), biscuits (thank you, Martha Stewart), sausage, and bacon. Friends each brought a dish: fruit, pastries, and more entrées and side dishes.

We gave thanks for our good fortune—good health, great jobs, excellent relationships—and sat down to eat. We talked, laughed, recounted stories from our week, and looked ahead. A game of Trivial Pursuit shifted us from the dining room into the living room and lasted for a couple of hours. We always play it women vs. men, and while I don’t remember who won that first game, I do recall that the room was filled with laughter and conversation.

By this time, most brunches would end with everyone saying their good-byes and getting on with their day. But no one said good-bye; no one left. A few gravitated outdoors to sit on our lakeside deck. The rest of us stayed indoors, out of the humidity. By now the huge spread of food was completely gone and a few people were hinting loudly about an afternoon snack. I pulled together some appetizers, set out cheese and crackers, and cracked open a couple of bottles of wine. I still laugh when I think about how quickly the snack round was eaten, especially after the huge brunch.

A couple of hours later, I said to one of my friends, Unless people start heading home, I’m going to have to make dinner! Dinner? Just the mention of the word had several people asking what we were going to have . . . and just one suggesting we make a big pot of gumbo and a pan of corn bread. I looked through my pantry, fridge, and freezer and had almost everything we needed. Someone made a run to the supermarket for a few missing ingredients and my kitchen helpers got busy.

By the time it was all over, my friends had been at my home—eating, talking, and laughing almost nonstop—for ten hours. After the last couple pulled out of the driveway, my husband examined the kitchen and declared, It looks like locusts have been through here! It was my best party ever.

I’ve had dinner parties to mark birthdays and anniversaries, as well as cookouts for holidays and themed parties for opening night of Major League Baseball season (Go, Astros!). They’re always fun and no one ever goes home hungry, but none has lived up to the legend of that brunch. Every family and group of friends has that legendary party, I think. When you get the right mix of close-knit people, it almost doesn’t matter what meal you’ve prepared. The love comes through in both the food and the conversation.

The same warmth and sense of tradition existed in my childhood in Indiana. My parents took my sisters Cindy and Patty and me to Sunday morning services at a United Methodist Church where we were members. After church we’d go to the nearby drugstore so my dad could buy the Sunday newspaper, and then we’d go home for dinner and an afternoon together. Sometimes we’d pile into the car and drive to the next county over, where my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived. We’d visit my dad’s mother first and then go down the street to the home of my mom’s mother. (Their fathers had died many years before.) If we had time, we’d stop at my uncle’s farm. We were city girls and life on a farm, with big tractors, loud, smelly animals, and a nearby woods and creek were an adventure.

Sometimes we’d stay near home, though, and a special treat was to have lunch at Frisch’s Big Boy. The restaurant is no longer there, but the chain still exists in the Midwest. I almost always ordered spaghetti and fresh strawberry pie loaded with whipped cream. Strawberries were my favorite food then, and I couldn’t resist them in any form. Of course, I was just a little girl and could never finish a slice of pie after a plate of spaghetti. I’m pretty sure my dad let me order the pie because he knew I’d be stuffed after a few bites, and he’d get to polish off the rest.

Both of my parents have passed away, but these childhood memories are strong. I was raised in a Christian family, so church was a given, but the rest of Sunday wasn’t necessarily religious or spiritual. But, without question, Sundays were the day we focused on being a family and staying connected to extended family in other cities. I understood it as a child, and now, as an adult, it’s even more important to me. I’m not the little girl in the backseat of the car. I’m a wife who wants to have a loving marriage. I’m a sister who wants to stay in touch. I’m an aunt who wants nieces and nephews to think of me as a positive role model. I’m a friend who wants others to realize that life is better because we’re in it together.

My career in newspapers took me away from my hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, shortly after graduation from Purdue University. My first job took me to the Shelbyville News in the small town of Shelbyville, Indiana, for four years. From there I moved to northern Indiana to work at the South Bend Tribune for another twelve years. There I made many friends, learned much about myself as a person and as a journalist, and met my husband, Steve Cowen, whose family is much like my own. A few times, we’ve even combined the two families for massive dinners at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. Their big family meals—when everyone was in town—also were on Sundays, and it wasn’t unusual for them to include four generations, from great-grandkids to great-grandparents. Now that my husband and I have moved to Texas, a brother-in-law lives in California, and my husband’s parents split their time between Michigan and Florida, big family dinners are special occasions.

When the Houston Chronicle, the nation’s sixth-largest newspaper, offered me a job as a features editor, it was an incredible career opportunity that meant moving to a dynamic and diverse city with a thriving culture. I’ve done many things at the Chronicle and now oversee its religion and food sections. It’s a strange combination, to be sure, but it works for me. Usually I write about other people and how they live their faith or how their culture or families unite around the kitchen table. Now, I get to tell you not only how it plays out in my own life, but also how it plays out in the lives of so many others. Hopefully you’ll be inspired to consider how you live (or want to live) your own faith and come together with your own family or community.

In this book, I want to introduce you to families you may have heard of but haven’t heard enough about. They’re pastors at some of America’s most notable churches, and they want you to know what happens in their homes.

This book was born from personal experience and extended into my contacts as religion and food editor at the Houston Chronicle. The more I think about these two topics, the more I see what they have in common, rather than how different they are: We are enriched by both, one meal and one prayer at a time. The connection seemed like a good springboard for a cookbook for people of faith.

In my job I have the pleasure of meeting interesting and exciting public figures such as Pastors Joel and Victoria Osteen, Rev. Dr. Ed and Jo Beth Young, or Bishop T. D. and Serita Jakes. Through this book I’ve gotten to know many more, families I hope you’ll feel connected to as you read about them. I admire them not just for their successes in the pulpit and in their communities, but also for the strong families they have built. They preach it, and they live it, and that’s something to emulate.

I hope they inspire you to use a Sunday afternoon very soon for your own brunch or dinner. If your extended family is scattered, start small with immediate family or close friends. If relatives are across town or a short drive away, pick up the phone and invite them over. If daily life leaves you feeling stressed out and overworked, use this day to slow down and appreciate the good things in your life, whatever they are. You’ll create positive memories and stronger connections as you build your own family traditions.

CHAPTER ONE

When It Comes to

Family,

Just Being Together Goes a Long Way

My brother-in-law, Mickey Rigdon, makes living his faith look effortless. He is an earnest man, raised on Midwestern values of humility, hard work, and love of family.

Tall and strong, he is a man who works with his hands. In his thirties, he spent a few years playing semipro football in his hometown of Lafayette, Indiana. As a child, he had athletic ability, but his family was too poor to pay the fees to play football or any other sport or outfit him with a uniform and equipment. So when, as an adult, he saw an ad for tryouts for the Lafayette Lions, he decided to give it a try. Week after week, he took a beating on the field and took no small amount of ribbing from the other guys on the team for being one of the oldest guys to suit up, but he loved it.

His parents had married young and had three boys, Mickey being the eldest. Then his father was in a horrific car accident that left him disabled and barely able to speak. Not only was Mickey Sr. unable to work, his wife couldn’t, either, because of the constant care he required. They got by on occasional short-term jobs, government assistance, and the kindness of others at their close-knit church.

When I was a boy we always prayed at mealtime, Mickey recalled. At a certain age my brothers and I had to participate. My parents taught us that the main concept was to be thankful for what we had. I don’t recall any of the prayers or what they were about, but I do remember that we always were thankful for the food—because that was about all we had, he laughed.

When he was a freshman at Purdue University he met my younger sister, Patty. They married not long after, and a few years later their son, Blake, was born. Several years and a few miscarriages later, the young couple settled in for life with one child. So it was a pleasant surprise when they learned Patty was pregnant again. With only grandsons on both sides of the family, Patty learned she was expecting a little girl.

Six months into the pregnancy, Patty’s water broke. She spent the next month or so hospitalized. Childbirth was a scheduled C-section, and excited grandparents-to-be, siblings, and nieces and nephews gathered in the hospital’s waiting room. This newborn girl was a happy miracle, so the roomful of smiling faces was stunned when Mickey came from the operating room looking shaken. Patty’s heart had stopped, and as doctors revived her with defibrillators she began to hemorrhage. Her heart stopped again. She was revived again. Little Mickaela, weighing less than five pounds, had barely made it out of her mother’s womb alive and would spend weeks hooked up to life-saving machines.

The day had begun with happy anticipation. It ended with desperation. We prayed openly in the waiting room, in hallways, in the church chapel, asking God to let both mother and daughter make it through first one night, and then another, and another.

I’m a strong person, and I think I am because of my faith, Patty said years later. Mickaela is here by the grace of God. Someday I’ll learn why we had to go through that. I think tough times are there sometimes to help us develop into who we are.

As they raised Blake and Mickaela their goals were simple: to instill the same values, faith, and traditions that they were taught; to be caring and thoughtful; to be generous with whatever they have; and to live with open hearts.

Both Patty and Mickey pray often; their prayers are words of thanks. The only asking they seem to do is for the good health and safety of loved ones. While their children’s sports schedules may have meant that not every family dinner is a home-cooked meal, they’re shared around a table nonetheless. And each begins with the four holding hands and saying grace.

As a father I pray for my kids, their health and safety. Now that Blake and his friends are in college and elsewhere, they’re heavy on our hearts, Mickey said.

Mealtime isn’t the only time they pray. Conversations with God are ongoing for both. Mickey simply believes that making himself strong spiritually will make him a better person—a good husband and father. Patty finds her drive to work to be her most consistent time alone and often uses that time for meditation.

Sometimes if I’m having a good day, I thank God for what I have, she said. Many people pray to ask for things. I like to thank Him every day for the things I have: a good home, healthy kids, a good dog.

Another trial came for the family one summer afternoon when the house next door to their home caught fire. Flames spread quickly; soon their home, too, was engulfed in flames. Blake, sixteen then, was home by himself. He managed to get the family’s two Labrador retrievers out and then grab family photos from the living room.

As firefighters aimed high-pressure hoses at their home, the family stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by neighbors and friends who’d heard the news and headed over. Patty and Mickey had on the clothes they’d worn to work. Blake was in shorts and a T-shirt, barefoot. Mickaela had been swimming in a neighbor’s pool so she was in her swimsuit, dripping wet. Every other thing they had owned was lost.

In the days that followed, family, friends, and church members began a seemingly endless parade of visits and phone calls. One family had just moved out of their home and into a new one. They offered their vacant home as temporary lodging. Cars pulled up all day long with used furniture, household items, and clothes—enough to get them by until they could settle with their insurance company and move into a new home.

So on a hot summer Sunday evening, the four found themselves in someone else’s nearly empty home, sitting on folding chairs around a card table holding a casserole that had been dropped off earlier in the day. Just as they’d done every other day of their lives, they grasped one another’s hands, bowed their heads, and thanked the Lord for all that they had: a caring community, cherished friends, and one another.

For my sister and her family, dinners together are sacred. Whether it’s a carry-out pizza or a carefully prepared meal, they are always shared around a table. And they’re done with intentionality: conversation is a way Patty and Mickey stay plugged in to their children’s lives; it’s how parents continue to be role models for how children should behave.

Family dinners, of course, aren’t limited to everyday meals we eat at home. There are birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and reunions. Some families gather so regularly that they don’t require invitations: siblings, cousins, aunts, and grandparents simply know where and when to report for Sunday brunch or dinner—and everyone plays a role.

In my husband’s family, spring and summer holidays such as Mother’s Day and the Fourth of July meant family matriarch Eldora Cleland was back at home in Indiana from her winter sojourn to Florida. At these gatherings, she was the queen of the kitchen and the three generations that followed were her culinary acolytes. Until she died at the age of ninety-three, she was unfailingly kind, upbeat, and devoted to her family. No matter what else had been prepared for any dinner, Eldora’s cooking was legendary. Her fried chicken and chicken and noodles can’t be matched, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to single-handedly prepare an eight-course meal—everything from scratch—even at the age of ninety.

After plates of comfort food were devoured, the table was cleared and the kitchen cleaned. Decks of cards made their appearance, and that’s when the real fun began. The Cowens are a card-playing family, and euchre is their game of choice. With two or three decks of cards and up to ten people around the table, the games can be raucous. They’re traditionally played boys against girls and last for hours, with the boys accusing the girls of table talk and the girls accusing the boys of, well, anything we can think of.

When the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in the family remember these get-togethers, what they remember most is the fun they had. Siblings bond over a great hand. In-laws gain acceptance into the family by their ability to hoard that last trump card to the final play of any hand. For other families, the games might be Scrabble, dominos, or even Trivial Pursuit. Others head outdoors to toss a football, splash in a pool, or simply