2025 Love Feast: Smiles, Stories, & Sweets

At the end of June, the worship communities of Cox Chapel and The Feast joined together for a fabulous service of testimony and fellowship. Love Feast services like this one have become an annual tradition for the Cox Chapel community, and we were thrilled to take it churchwide this time by welcoming congregants from The Feast.

“This was an especially meaningful service because we got to welcome The Feast to Cox Chapel!” LouAnn Jumper, a Cox congregant who served as our liturgist on that day, said. “It was so powerful that we all got to work together to make worship happen.”

While we at Cox Chapel love the rhythms of liturgy and the lectionary, we are always hungry for special occasions to keep things fresh, especially in the summer months. That’s why we picked up on the Wesleyan tradition of the Love Feast two years ago.

A Love Feast service does not include Holy Communion but instead invites worshipers to gather for food and fellowship at the conclusion of the organized service. Love Feasts also center on the personal testimony of lay congregants instead of the crafted sermon of a minister.

From the perspective of The Feast, it was awesome to have an accessible service take place in one of the church’s traditional worship spaces. Jenny Doran, who leads the HPUMC Kingdom Singers, commented that it was “especially wonderful to hear the voices of the Kingdom Singers fill Cox Chapel!”

In addition, the theme of our service this year was the celebration of disability advocacy work here in Dallas, so The Feast and the Belong Disability Ministry got to experience increased awareness for our mission thanks to this space and occasion.

Cox Chapel got to see our traditions carried on in the reading of Scripture, the singing of a Psalm, the use of the beautiful space, and most importantly, the amplification of our Love Feast tradition. The Feast saw our traditions carried on in the procession and recession of our worship leaders, the musical gifts of the Kingdom Singers, and our opening affirmation: “Here at The Feast, we rejoice in the Lord! We are all God’s children, loved and precious in God’s sight.”

It was wonderful to see two seemingly very different communities come together with such synergy. The Love Feast was a powerful example of that work in action—bringing the two communities together and helping them get to know one another.

“Blest be the (new) ties that bind!” Dana Harkey from Cox Chapel said.

The experience of disabled persons and their families at church can often be isolating, so the warm welcome from Cox Chapel was especially meaningful to the Waterman, Curtis, and Heartsill families from The Feast. They reflected that it was wonderful to see people come together churchwide in support of the disability community, because “coming together to support others is what Jesus is all about.”

For people who regularly celebrate Holy Communion as these communities do, it was a wonderful reminder of how worship actually, according to The United Methodist Book of Worship, does “make us one with each other, one with Christ, and one in ministry to all the world.” While Love Feast services don’t include Holy Communion, they do always include food and fellowship. This year, we took those elements to the next level, surpassing those of prior years.

The 2025 HPUMC Love Feast also welcomed team members from Howdy Homemade Ice Cream. We heard testimonies from Howdy Homemade owner Tom Landis and Vice President Brandt Urban (a.k.a. “Bossman Brandt”) about their meaningful mission. Howdy Homemade is a local ice cream shop that serves up “a scoop and a smile” by granting the dignity of a meaningful paying job to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“Watching someone with Down syndrome preach in a church back when Brandt was born would have been unthinkable,” Tom reflected. “But the way that his work and his faith have impacted me and so many others is truly incredible!”

I am so grateful to everyone who came together to make this year’s Love Feast happen!

For me, this wasn’t just about celebrating the disability community because of my work at The Feast; it was a reminder of what ministry is all about. I literally wouldn’t have met Tom if not for The Feast. And, while it was important to lift up the Belong Disability Ministry and welcome that wonderful community to Cox Chapel, this project also brought together so many of the skills and relationships that my work at HPUMC has given me.

When I came to Dallas to start seminary, my bishop tasked me with studying the question, “What should the church be in the world today?” To me, this is it!

We make our presence known in the community, build relationships, bring together people with common passions and interests, lift up worthy causes, and make a prayerful and public celebration of what God is up to. At its core, that’s what testimony and proclamation are: sharing good news. We at HPUMC are so blessed by the place where we find ourselves and the resources we possess. What more could the church hope to do but use our position to get behind worthy causes and support agencies that use business for good? I didn’t write this piece to brag or take credit, though; this is about God and the wonderful people God has called me to serve.

In the words of the fabulous hymn that opened the Love Feast service, “To God be the glory, great things (God) hath done!”