Meals

In the past few decades, the sector has shifted from tables to takeaway, a process that accelerated through the pandemic and continued even as the health emergency abated. In 2023, 74 percent of all restaurant traffic came from “off premises” customers—that is, from takeout and delivery. This is up from 61 percent before COVID, according to the National Restaurant Association.

The flip side of less dining out is more eating alone. The share of U.S. adults having dinner or drinks with friends on any given night has declined by more than 30 percent in the past 20 years. “There’s an isolationist dynamic that’s taking place in the restaurant business,” the Washington, D.C., restaurateur Steve Salis said. “I think people feel uncomfortable in the world today. They’ve decided that their home is their sanctuary. It’s not easy to get them to leave.”

Even when Americans eat at restaurants, they are much more likely to do so by themselves. According to data gathered by the online reservations platform OpenTable, solo dining has increased by 29 percent in just the past two years. The No. 1 reason is the need for more “me time.”

In the U.S., solo dining reservations have risen 29% over the last two years, according to OpenTable, the restaurant reservation site. They’re also up 18% this year in Germany and 14% in the United Kingdom.

Japan even has a special term for solo dining: “ohitorisama,” which means “alone.” In a recent survey, Japan’s Hot Pepper Gourmet Eating Out Research Institute found that 23% of Japanese people eat out alone, up from 18% in 2018. As a result, many restaurants in Japan and elsewhere are redoing their seating, changing their menus, and adding other special touches to appeal to solo diners. Even so-called family restaurants are increasing counter seats for solitary diners, and restaurants are offering courses with smaller servings so a person eating alone gets a variety of dishes.

OpenTable CEO Debby Soo thinks remote work is one reason for the increase, with diners seeking respites from their home offices. The pandemic also made social interactions less feasible and therefore less important while eating out.

The growth in solo dining also is the result of more people who are living alone. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 38% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 54 were living without a partner, up from 29% in 1990. In Japan, single households now make up one-third of the total; that’s expected to climb to 40% by 2040, according to government data.

Increasing interest in solo travel – particularly among travelers ages 55 and over – is also leading to more meals alone.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A time of solitude can be a refreshing break from a busy schedule. But for many people solitude is not a choice. Without putting singles in an embarrassing spotlight, it would be encouraging if church members would diplomatically invite singles to share a homecooked meal, especially during the holidays.

Fine dining typically means splurging a little for high-quality meat or fresh seafood. But what if money were truly no object?

Restaurant owners and chefs around the world create original dining experiences for those who want unique experiences. You know, like spending nearly $10,000 on a pizza or $1,000 on an ice cream sundae.

Here are a few of the world’s most expensive meals:

• Masa — New York. Dinner Omakase menu per person: $750 sushi-eating experience.

• SubliMotion —Dubai. Dinner per person: around $2,000. That’s more than the average family will spend for an entire month on food.

• De Daltons – The Netherlands. The Golden Boy Burger: $5,532.79. Chef Robbert Jan de Veen’s “The Golden Boy” is made with 100% Wagyu A5 meat, as well as Beluga caviar, king crab, Spanish Paleta Ibérico, white truffle, and English cheddar.

• Renato Viola — Salerno, Italy. Louis XIII Pizza: $9,184.32. Pizza toppings include: mozzarella di bufala, lobster, and caviar all flown in from all different parts of the world.

• The Fortress Resort and Spa — Sri Lanka. The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence Dessert: $14,500. The dessert features Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream with a pomegranate and mango compote. The base is adorned with an 80-carat aquamarine stone.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Salvation and The Lord's Supper—They're both offered free of charge (although Jesus paid the price that we could never have paid), and the Lord's Supper is better than anything on this list. (2) Social Justice—While millions of people are malnourished, a few people can afford outrageously expensive, luxurious meals. (3) Simplicity; Provision—God promised to provide daily bread, not daily slice of "Louis XIII" pizza. (4) Hospitality—Hospitality is more about love and openness than about trying to offer a "world's best meal." Encourage people to keep it simple.

In February 2020, BBC journalist Vicky Baker jumped on the Eurostar to Paris, motivated by a sudden urge to have dinner with a friend. American Jim Haynes had entered his late 80s and his health was declining, yet she knew he would welcome a visit. Jim always welcomed visitors to his home in Paris.

She was far from the only guest wandering into the warm glow of his artist's workroom on a wet winter's night. Inside, people were squeezing, shoulder to shoulder, through the narrow kitchen. Strangers struck up conversations, bunched together in groups, and balancing their dinners on paper plates.

Jim had operated open-house policy at his home every Sunday evening for more than 40 years. Absolutely anyone was welcome to come for an informal dinner, all you had to do was phone or email and he would add your name to the list. No questions asked. Just put a donation in an envelope when you arrive.

There would be a buzz in the air, as people of various nationalities - locals, immigrants, travelers - milled around the small, open-plan space. A pot of hearty food bubbled on the stove and servings would be dished out onto a trestle table, so you could help yourself and continue to mingle. It was for good reason that Jim was nicknamed the "godfather of social networking." He led the way in connecting strangers, long before we outsourced it all to Silicon Valley.

At the dinners' peak, Jim would welcome up to 120 guests, filling his home, and spilling out into the cobbled back garden. An estimated 150,000 people have come over the years.

"The door was always open," says Amanda Morrow, an Australian journalist. "It was a revolving door of guests - some who wanted to stay over, and others who just wanted to say hello. Jim never said no to anyone."

Amid the outpouring of online tributes since his death in his sleep on 6 January 2021, these words from his son Jesper stand out:

The only thing that really got Jim down was people leaving. He struggled with that. He didn't like being on his own... His goal from early on was to introduce the whole world to each other. He almost succeeded.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Fellowship; Home; Outreach – Imagine the results if church members would invite others to share in an informal meal at their home. Neighbors, friends, church members, visitors to church all welcomed to mingle and fellowship in the warm, cozy atmosphere of a home.

Shifrah Combiths, a freelance writer and mother-of-five in Tallahassee, Florida, wrote about a baking hack for the website The Kitchn that was so valuable it was picked up overseas by the British tabloid The Mirror.

Combiths had a mom who used to love eating the last slice of bread in a loaf, often referred to as “the heel.” (“Save the heel for me,” her mom was fond of saying.) Later in life, Combiths was surprised to find out that her mom’s enthusiasm for the final slice of bread was a bit unusual. So, her tip is for people who don’t enjoy eating the heel.

“It’s simple,” she writes. “Use that heel of bread to keep your soft, homemade cookies, well, soft … cookies that are supposed to be soft and chewy are disappointing when they become crunchy and stale!”

Combiths says the hack works because the moisture in the bread, when in close contact with the cookies, will eventually transfer over. She even says it can be a last resort to restore some chewiness to already-hardened cookies.

“Use this cookie-saving tip when you make big batches — or you need to make baked treats the night before a gathering of friends and family.”

Combiths does offer a brief warning, however. “It’s crucial to ensure the bread is plain,” she says. “Unless you want garlic-flavored cookies.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The love of God has the power to influence others. For maximum effectiveness, remain close to God and watch his love spill over to the people in your immediate circle of relationship.

The dining room is the closest thing the American home has to an appendix—a dispensable feature that served some more important function at an earlier stage of architectural evolution. Many of them sit gathering dust, patiently awaiting the next “dinner holiday” on Easter or Thanksgiving.

That’s why the classic, walled-off dining room is getting harder to find in new single-family houses. It won’t be missed by many. Americans now tend to eat in spaces that double as kitchens or living rooms—a small price to pay for making the most of their square footage.

But in many new apartments, even a space to put a table and chairs is absent. Eating is relegated to couches and bedrooms, and hosting a meal has become virtually impossible. The housing crisis is killing off places to eat whether we like it or not, designing loneliness into American floor plans.

According to surveys in 2015 and 2016 by the National Association of Home Builders, 86 percent of households want a combined kitchen and dining room—a preference accommodated by only 75 percent of new homes. If anything, the classic dining room isn’t dying fast enough for most people’s taste.

If dining space is merging with other rooms in single-family homes, it’s vanishing altogether from newly constructed apartments. Americans might not mind what’s happening to their houses, but the evolution of apartments is a more complicated story.

Floor-plan expert Bobby Fijan said “For the most part, apartments are built for Netflix and chill.” Even though we’re dining at home more and more—going to restaurants peaked in 2000—many new apartments offer only a kitchen island as an obvious place to eat.

This is partly a response to shrinking household size. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the share of one-person households more than tripled from 1940 to 2020. A dedicated dining space might feel wasted on someone who lives alone.

As households and dining spaces have contracted, the number of people eating alone has grown. According to a 2015 report by the Food Marketing Institute, nearly half the time we spend eating is spent in isolation, a central factor in America’s loneliness epidemic and a correlate to a range of physical- and mental-health problems.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In an age when Americans are spending less and less time with one another, a table and some chairs could be just what we need for fellowship and human interaction. Make an effort to invite people over, especially during the holiday season, and especially those who live alone.

In CT magazine, author and podcaster Jen Wilkins writes:

It was a typical Friday night at the Wilkin house. A spontaneous dinner had collected a growing number of neighbors and friends. As the kitchen swelled with people and chatter, I leaned over to each of my kids and whispered the code they were probably expecting: “FHB.”

Family hold back. Maybe you know this strategy, too. Surveying the food relative to the guests, it became apparent that we needed a non-miraculous solution for our five loaves and two fishes. My husband prayed over the meal and then, quietly, the Wilkins slipped to the back of the line, serving themselves minimal portions to stretch the food. They knew they wouldn’t go without; it was not a matter of if they would eat but when. Worst case, we’d order a pizza once the guests had gone home.

Nobody wants to be at the end of the line. Given the choice, we want to go first, to get the full portion, to sit in the most comfortable chair. But Christ-followers understand that life is about more than doing what we want. It’s about doing what we wish. Let me explain.

We can all imagine times when we wanted to be treated better, when we longed for more care, recognition, and grace than we received from others. We are not wrong to hold these wishes. They illustrate the basic human need to be known, loved, and accepted. And what we do with how we feel about our wishes, met and unmet, will shape the course of our lives. To that end, Jesus invites us to live lives directed by wishful thinking, though not in the way we might anticipate: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12, ESV).

Put simply, Jesus tells us to do what we wish. Thinking about our own wish list, we then act accordingly toward others. We give the encouragement we wish we had received…and serve as we wish to be served. We step to the end of the line. We move to the least comfortable chair. We defer what we wish for ourselves and instead secure it for others.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every day we look for ways to do what we wish others would do for us. It’s easier to take the smaller portion when you know the lack is only temporary. This world is flat-out starving for kindness and decency. It is ravenous for meaning and purpose, and we are just the family to invite them to the table. Do it as Christ did for you.

When I was a child, my dad made up a fake holiday called Big Sandwich Night the weekend after Thanksgiving. On that night we got the longest bread we could find and built a big sandwich together and then cut it up and ate it. We got really fancy ingredients and each built our own section of sandwich before cutting it. Building the sandwich together represents community or teamwork. After dinner we would put our Christmas tree up and the holiday season was officially kicked off with Big Sandwich Night.

I grew up believing this was a real holiday that Americans everywhere celebrated until when I was eight-years-old. I asked a friend if they were excited for Big Sandwich Night and they were like “What are you talking about?” It kind of shattered my worldview, but we still celebrate it and I’ve spread the tradition to friends and partners.

Over the years as we’ve included more people, we’ve started having to graft loaves together to make a sandwich big enough for everyone. But it still communicates the core idea of everyone eating the same sandwich together in fellowship.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What a good idea to promote community with family and friends, especially in-person community.

For busy families, gathering together for dinner can feel like an impossibility. Children could use it now more than ever. Robin Black-Burns’s teenage daughter has after-school activities that fall over dinnertime, making evening meals at home a thing of the past. The SUV has become their de facto dinner table.

Robin’s daughter, 14-year-old Athena Burns, has dinner in the car four nights a week, eating during the hourlong drive home from robotics-club meetings. Robin usually arrives at her daughter’s school 15 minutes early to eat her own dinner in the front seat while waiting for Athena. Ms. Black-Burns says, “We wonder why so many kids have anxiety. Well, gee, they have a rigorous academic schedule and after-school activities and they’re eating in the car.”

In 2021, 44% of high-school students said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in the past year, according to data from the CDC. At the same time, mounting scientific research shows that gathering for regular meals and conversation might be one way to build children’s emotional resilience.

Nationwide surveys show that the number of dinners parents and children eat together has fallen in recent decades. The primary reason: the conflicting schedules of working parents and kids.

“It’s so basic that people forget about it,” says Ellen Rome, head of Adolescent Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital. Gathering around the table, Dr. Rome says, is “a useful mechanism for creating connectedness and role-modeling behaviors that parents want children to emulate. … We have a lot of adolescents who’ve devolved to having all of their meals in their bedroom. It’s a significant step away from family connection.”

Professor Jerica Berge, in a teen-eating study, has continued to follow research participants from a 2010 survey group, then-adolescents who are now in their 20s. Those who had eaten two to three family meals a week as teens had lower rates of obesity and eating disorders, as well as better mental-health outcomes than those who had eaten fewer meals together. Those young adults now give priority to dining with their own children and partners.

Young adults who had eaten meals with their families three to five times a week as adolescents had even more-significant physical and mental-health benefits.

The typical family spends just six hours together a week, thanks in part to long working hours and time spent diving down the digital device rabbit hole.

According to a study of 2,000 British parents with children at home, most agree that work shifts are hindering family quality time (56 percent). Other factors include homework (29 percent), household chores (27 percent), TV time (21 percent), social media use (20 percent), and after school activities (19 percent).

When families are at home together, 37 percent admit they don’t set aside specific time to spend with one another. The survey finds half of respondents think there are too many distractions in the home—particularly devices with screens—which impact quality time.

There’s plenty of research that shows how eating meals together as a family has positive effects on everyone. To that end, a quarter of parents would like to eat more family meals together to encourage conversation, as 42 percent say they struggle to initiate chats with their children. The most popular topics around the table when they do dine together are: school (50 percent), TV shows (48 percent), and friendships (46 percent).

Aside from mealtimes, parents are most likely to chat to their children when in the car (57 percent), putting them to bed (40 percent), and walking to and from school (38 per cent).

Everyone knows your family can be a pain in the neck sometimes, but regular family dinners can be the key to reduced stress levels in the household. This was found in a survey by the American Heart Association (AHA), who research chronic stress which can increase rates for all manner of heart diseases.

Of the 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed in September 2022, 91% of respondents said their family was less stressed when they share meals together. 84% say they wish they could share a meal more often with loved ones.

Dr. Erin Michos said, “Sharing meals with others is a great way to reduces stress, boost self-esteem, and improve social connection, particularly for kids. Chronic, constant stress can also increase your lifetime risk of heart disease and stroke. So, it is important for people to find ways to reduce and manage stress as much as possible, as soon as possible.”

Connecting with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors benefits people beyond stress relief. In fact, the survey found a majority of people say sharing a meal reminds them of the importance of connecting with other people, and say it reminds them to slow down and take a break.

Those surveyed say they are more likely (59%) to make healthier food choices when eating with other people but have difficulty aligning schedules with their friends or family to do so. Overall, respondents reported eating alone about half of the time.

Dr. Michos said, “It’s not always as easy as it sounds to get people together at mealtime. Like other healthy habits, give yourself permission to start small and build from there.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Eating together as a family takes sacrifice and planning. Start from an early age with your children (but it’s never too late). Turn off the TV and cell phones. Plan for some conversation and allow even the youngest to contribute.

As a result of a streak of good behavior, over one thousand inmates from the Snake River Correctional Institution were served dinner from a local Burger King franchise. Amber Campbell, speaking for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said such meals help people in prison feel normal.

“Some of these men hadn’t had a Whopper for years,” said Campbell. “The things we might just take for granted in our day-to-day lives are things that people don’t have in prison. We want to make good neighbors of the folks who are incarcerated.”

The cost of the food was paid for by the prisoners themselves, although a former inmate says that cost can be prohibitive. “If you don’t have someone on the outside sending you money, you won’t be going to many of these,” said Luke Wirkkala. He lived at Snake River for four years before his murder conviction was overturned and he was later acquitted. He said, “Just having food that is closer to normal makes you feel, even for just a short while, like you are not in prison. You never totally forget where you’re at, but it’s just a little lessening of the pressure for an hour or two.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Rewards for good behavior can result in more good behavior. When we offer hope along with punishment, we can show God’s mercy and forgiveness.

The kids at Summit Elementary School in Butler, Pennsylvania, are looking out for their peers five miles away at Broad Street Elementary. Broad Street is in a food desert, where it's difficult to get fresh produce.

Two years ago, Summit Elementary school students, led by teacher Angela Eyth, began growing fruit, vegetables, and herbs on campus, with the bounty going to families at Broad Street Elementary. Angela said, “It's amazing when you start with a small idea and it can grow. No pun intended.”

The Summit Elementary students are not only learning how fruits and vegetables grow, but they are also gaining math skills through measuring and estimating and coming up with solutions to problems. Recently, they figured out a way to keep out bugs that eat kale.

The school received a grant to build a stand at Broad Street Elementary, where they will put out the corn, squash, carrots, beans, and other items they grow. This is just the beginning—future plans include planting sunflowers, Christmas trees, and a pollinator garden. Angela said, "The kids are in charge of everything. They're so proud of what we're doing here."

Possibly overlooked by many is the fact that on at least one occasion, Jesus cooked for his disciples. John 21:9 records that the disciples had been out fishing. When they came to shore, they found Jesus on the beach with a meal. “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.”

Avery Gilbert, psychologist and fragrance scientist, writes that cooking is much more than just preparing a meal, it is an invitation. The savory notes of roasted meat and baked bread stimulate us enroute to a meal.

Food aroma is an invitation and a spur to action. Even before the first bite, it triggers an elaborate sequence of physiological events: salivation, insulin release by the pancreas, and the secretion of various digestive juices. The aroma of bacon, at a level so faint it can’t be consciously identified, has been shown to trigger the flow of saliva.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Jesus offers everyone an open invitation to eat and drink with him. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Rev. 3:20). “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev. 19:9).

In 2012 Sara Harmeyer quit her job as charity and fundraising events organizer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Dallas. She had been happiest the year she worked at the Red Porch Cafe—a restaurant out of her own home: “That was the best year of my life. There was something about gathering people, the food, being connected.” She envisioned inviting neighbors to her backyard for a meal and asked her father to construct a table seating 20. Using the Nextdoor website, she invited 300 people and more than 90 came: “I was absolutely blown away. I realized that night, as people kept coming down the driveway, that people just want to be invited.”

Over the last six years she has hosted more than 3,000 people. She now runs Neighbors Table full time and has placed tables in 28 States, with the aim of placing at least one table in all 50 states by 2020. She delivers the western red cedar tables herself to families as well as businesses and churches. They each cost $1,700 and up. She is often there for the first meal and gets to know her customers: “Most people getting our tables want to be part of what we’re doing and want to be part of something bigger than themselves.”

She tells her Real Simple magazine interviewer:

Two thousand years ago, we were invited to love our neighbors, and that is for sure what drives me. The world is a little crazy right now, and we could use more love in our interactions. A lot of people need to feel included and seen. And it’s hard—my neighbors are not all like me. But there are ways we can connect, and the table is a beautiful, natural place to do that. When you’re sitting at a big table, you feel like you’re part of something.

Editor’s Note: This worthy group is still going strong in 2025. You can visit their website here

A poll taken by the British Nutrition Foundation questioned 27,500 children and youth aged five to sixteen about the origins of food. According to a summary of the survey in a BBC article, almost a third of UK primary pupils think cheese is made from plants and a quarter think fish fingers come from chicken or pigs, suggests a survey. Nearly one in 10 secondary pupils thinks tomatoes grow underground.

The survey also revealed confusion about the source of staples such as pasta and bread among younger pupils, with about a third of five-to-eight-year-olds believing that they are made from meat. About 19 percent of this age group did not realize that potatoes grew underground, with 10% thinking they grew on bushes or trees.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) God, creator; Thanksgiving—It's even more tragic when children (and adults) don't understand the ultimate source of food. (2) Farming; Agriculture—This illustration also sets up Jesus' parables involving agriculture—we don't live in an agricultural society so we'll have to imagine what it was like in the world of Scripture.

3,975 The number of feet of the longest loaf of bread in the world, made at a bakers' party in Portugal in 2005. When sliced, it fed over 15,000 people. (Note: This record still stands in 2024)

1777 The year wheat was first planted (as a hobby crop) in the United States.

1928 The year pre-sliced bread was invented in Chillicothe, Missouri, after being worked on for 16 years.

12.6 The grams of protein in a 3.5 ounce serving of hard red winter wheat, almost equal to the grams of protein in the same serving of soybeans.

10 The years a family of four could live off the bread produced by one acre of wheat.

6 The number of wheat classifications: hard red winter, hard red spring, soft red winter, durum (hard), hard white, soft white.

1.25-2 The hours it takes for Saccharomyces cerevisiae (common bread yeast) to double in numbers, making it easily cultured.

1 A single loaf of bread, when partaken at Communion, is a powerful symbol of Christian unity: "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf" (1 Cor. 10:17).

An issue of National Geographic explored how sharing food together has always been part of the human story. The article points to a cave near Tel Aviv where there is evidence of ancient meals prepared at an hearth, the oldest ever found, where diners gathered to eat together. In the cave archeologists found a circular loaf of bread with scoring marks, baked to be divided.

The article continues:

"To break bread together," a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, provoke laughter. Children make mud pies, have tea parties, trade snacks to make friends, and mimic the rituals of adults. They celebrate with sweets from the time of their first birthday, and the association of food with love will continue throughout life—and in some belief systems, into the afterlife. … Even when times are tough, the urge to celebrate endures. In the Antarctic in 1902, during Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery expedition, the men prepared a fancy meal for Midwinter Day, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Hefty provisions had been brought on board. Forty-five live sheep were slaughtered and hung from the rigging, frozen by the elements until it was time to feast. The cold, the darkness, and the isolation were forgotten for a while. "With such a dinner." Scott wrote, "we agreed that life in the Antarctic Regions was worth living."

Research shared by The Smithsonian highlights something that stay-at-home mom's have felt for a long time: home-cooking is a burden on women and under-appreciated by men and kids. Despite the incredible benefits of community, nutrition, and culture that home-cooking provides, it's an increasing struggle in modern life to put that home-cooking on the table. When it is, the food is "often met with whines and complaints from both their kids and husbands or boyfriends. As the researchers reported, 'We rarely observed a meal in which at least one family member didn't complain about the food they were served.'"

Possible Preaching Angle:

There are two things to take away from this: 1) Whether you're a man, women, or child, work to cook at home and be grateful for your food. 2) This is a picture of how so many of us view Communion or the Eucharist. The Table is set, with a lavish meal that cost our Host so much. And so often, we brush by it with hardly a thought, or meet it with inner complaints and whining instead of the deep gratitude such care, love, and selfless nourishment deserves.

An estimated sixty six percent of Americans watch TV while eating dinner. Sixty five percent eat lunch at their desk. Twenty percent of meals are eaten in the car. What other things do people do while eating? Walking, riding the subway, talking on the phone, reading a magazine or book, putting on makeup, and walking the dog are common pursuits of those who eat while juggling other tasks.

What's the price tag for our insane busyness and constant multitasking? At least two dozen research studies have shown that eating while distracted leads to overindulgence. But according to a study (2014) published in a journal called Psychological Science, eating while multitasking also dampens our perception of taste. Food tastes blander, we crave stronger flavors (like salt and sugar), and we end up eating more.

The bottom line: when it's time to eat, it's time to eat. Turn off the computer, the iPhone, and the TV. Enjoy the meal, savor every bite, family and friends. Light a candle, put some flowers in a vase and use cloth napkins. Not only will it taste better, you'll eat less.

Possible Preaching Angles: Obviously, this applies to meals, but this same principle could apply to how we celebrate the Lord's Supper. Do we come distracted? Is our celebration of the Lord's Supper a bland experience because we're trying to multitask while we worship?