RHYTHMS | PRAYER, PRACTICE, PLACE
Vol 4. Issue 13
Friends,
This issue celebrates that way the table brings us together to share a meal and share our stories. It includes the Prayer, A Blessing for Tables, by our friend Cari Jenkins, a Practice that celebrates 150 years of Colorado statehood with 150 Tables, and a uniquely Coloradan expression of community with The Mile Long Table as a sacred Place.
Our hope is that these stories and rhythms encourage you to set and share your table with neighbors this summer.
All blessings.
Jared Mackey
PRAYER | A BLESSING FOR TABLES
By Cari Jenkins
God of Welcome,
I dedicate my table to You.
You are kind.
You are good.
You are beautiful.
I ask that I would receive You
In the generosity of kinship gathered around my table.
Bless my table to be a place of warmth,
Where stories, hearts, and lives are shared and received.
Bless the food and conversation at my table,
That they might nourish the whole of each human life.
Bless those who gather here
With laughter that echoes loudly and joy that restores.
Bless the stories told around my table,
That they may remind us of who we are,
Where we belong, and that we are not alone.
Grant each of us peace as we are together.
Calm anxious minds and hearts;
Breathe life into weary souls.
May my table be a haven—
A place of clarity in the midst of a chaotic world.
And when the meal has ended,
The candles extinguished, and the plates put away,
Send us out with the generosity of
Your Kindness, Your Goodness, and Your Beauty
That we have experienced together.
May we carry Your welcome
Into the places we live, work, and play,
Reproducing and multiplying it in the lives of others.
Amen.
Cari is a gatherer, speaker, shepherd, and guide. She is the founder of The Host and the Guest, providing products and services for a hospitable life. Cari lives and works within an intentional community focusing on hospitality at The Downing House in Cherry Hills Village.
PRACTICE | 150 Tables
By Jared Mackey
“Gather a few people from your neighborhood at the table… As you do, our city becomes more connected and more compassionate.”
As Colorado celebrates 150 years as the Centennial State, there is a movement for individuals and organizations to set 150 Tables Across Colorado. By encouraging people to come together to share a meal, seeds of connection and compassion are planted in the communities of Colorado. The table movement is coordinated by local nonprofit Longer Tables, which focuses on bringing together cities, neighborhoods, organizations, and individuals at longer tables.
Colorado Springs is a city supporting the 150 Tables Across Colorado movement. Facilitated by the nonprofit, Hey Neighbor, their city is inviting neighbors to share a meal, connect face-to-face, and strengthen the places where they live. “The goal is simple: Meet your neighbors. Share a meal. Build community.” Their message is clear. “Hosting a table does not need to be complicated to be meaningful.” Colorado Springs Mayor, Yemi Mobolade, shared a personal message about the movement, “Gather a few people from your neighborhood at the table… As you do, our city becomes more connected and more compassionate.”
Kelly Bull is the Executive Director of Hey Neighbor. She shared a few of the creative ways people are hosting tables for their neighbors in Colorado Springs. “One woman called a coffee food truck that came out to her street. She did the work to close the street, put out two folding tables, and invited all her neighbors to bring breakfast foods to share.” Kelly delights in the simplicity and creativity of neighbors hosting a table. “Another neighbor put a table in their garage to provide shade and invited their neighbors to a garage dinner party.” The priority is neighborly connection more than a beautiful location or elaborate decoration.
There is a diverse spectrum of tables across Colorado, from cities hosting hundreds of neighbors down main street to individuals hosting a handful of neighbors in their backyards. The practice of 150 Tables Across Colorado invites everyone in Colorado to join in a movement of hospitality, connection, and belonging.
Thank you to Kelly Bull with Hey Neighbor and Tim Jones with Longer Tables for their contributions to this article and commitment to hosting neighbors at the table.
Practice
Find a Co-host
You can host a table on your own, but it is more meaningful to invite neighbors to help, and working together cultivates connection.
Determine a Location
Set a table in or near your home—dining room, backyard, driveway, or a nearby park.
Choose a Date and Time
Most table gatherings work best when they last about two hours. It can be an evening, Sunday afternoon, or weekend brunch.
Plan the Meal
Put food provisions on the table from your neighbor's kitchen, a local caterer, or your favorite restaurant. A potluck is a great way to spread out the responsibility of providing the food.
Invite Your Neighbors
Distribute invitations a few weeks before and send a reminder a few days before. Create an invitation and knock on your neighbor’s doors to invite them personally.
Prepare the Environment
Important items include tables, chairs, plates, cups, utensils, drinks, trash and recycling bags, and name tags. Show intentionality with tablecloths and use plants, fruits, or vegetables as table decor.
Welcome and Connect
Greet neighbors as they arrive and invite them to sit with someone they don’t yet know. Ask a few simple questions to help neighbors get to know each other. Implement the rules of the table: no job talk and no sales pitches. Be your real self, and in doing so, invite others to do the same.
PLACE | MILE LONG TABLE
By Jared Mackey
“You’re invited to dinner—with 5,280 new friends.”
Tim Jones has spent the last decade with a dream of a mile-long table. That passion led him to become the founder of Longer Tables, a local nonprofit developing partnership in Denver, across Colorado, and now cities around the country to gather people together for shared meals at longer tables.
Tim’s love for a longer table began when a friend hosted a long dinner table in a beautiful backyard in Greenwood Village in 2013. At that dinner, Tim sat across from a Black woman in her mid-60s. At the time, Tim was a white single male in his late 30s. He found himself laughing deeply with her over shared stories about Denver. As the evening unfolded, he witnessed people lean toward each other up and down the longer table. It was an inflection point in his life, an inchoate understanding, that helping people set and share tables was what he was called to do. Setting and sharing longer tables has expanded for Tim over the last decade.
In 2023, Longer Tables hosted The 528 Table in Civic Center Park. The event was a collaborative effort in which diverse community leaders invited 8 people to join them for a shared dinner. A 500-foot table set in Civic Center Park transformed a space that was often seen as unsafe to a place of connection and invitation. “The table transformed the space. In this beautiful way, it humanized it,” shared Tim with unreserved emotion. It was the longest table he had hosted, this one with the help of local caterers and corporate sponsors.
Tim shares two stories that embody the hope and heart of a longer table. There were seats intentionally left empty for people who would discover the table in the middle of the park. Two of those seats would be filled by a family from North Carolina visiting Denver for the weekend. The unexpected guest posted on Facebook when he returned home, “Thank you, Denver, for inviting us and welcoming us into your city at your table.” In a city with a history of rugged individualism, a shared table told a different story. The second story was from someone who had been living on the streets in Denver for years, requiring the use of a wheelchair. He was invited to the table by one of the organizers and accepted wheeling his chair to the table between business, civic, and community leaders. “He asked Matt, who was the businessman sitting next to him, if he would tear off a piece of the bread in the middle of the table because his hands were dirty.” The shared moment was an embodied practice of breaking bread with those who live in the same city but would likely never share the same meal.
Tim had a vision to see the table exponentially grow to over 5,000 feet. In July 2025, the first attempt at a Mile Long Table was hosted on the Auraria Campus. The meal was a reflection and representation of various indigenous Colorado cuisines. The organizing effort was 180 co-hosts inviting their coworkers, friends, and neighbors to share a meal with thousands of other citizens. The total attendance was just over 3,400 people. “When I saw the empty tables,” Tim shares humbly, “I thought, ‘There is no shame; there’s just more room at the table.’”
In 2026, as Colorado commemorates its 150th anniversary of statehood, Tim is leading the effort of Longer Tables to host a Mile Long Table. This year, the Mile Long Table will be at the National Western Center. It will be a table 5,280 feet long, inviting people from every walk of life to a shared meal. For Tim, the Mile Long Table is a place of inspiration for individuals and neighbors to experience the sense of community that a shared table can bring.
In a moment where relational isolation and cultural division are the dominant narratives, a longer table is a place where people are invited to come together, and a meal is shared by 5,280 neighbors. A Mile Long Table is a sacred place.
Thank you to Tim Jones for his contribution to this article and for his passion and vision for longer tables to cultivate connection among the citizens of Colorado.
More rhythms to root your faith in place.
Sacred Place provides a beautiful bi-weekly publication to share the rhythms of a Prayer, Practice, and Place as simple ways to help cultivate love for our neighbors and neighborhoods.
