Welcome Tables

Since the very beginnings of Root + Branch, Welcome Tables — or dinner church — have been a way for this community to share life together through sacred practice.

Welcome Tables have created meaningful space for building relationships guided by hospitality, nourishment, and conversation — all wisdom from our Christian tradition. Just as the early church shared with and fed one another in spiritual care and physical sustenance, the spirit of communion lives in R+B’s embodiment of this form of community.

With this tradition, we participate in these practices: eating together, conversation, sharing labor, presentness, hospitality, and liturgical rituals. Every few months, we form small groups of around 8–12 people that will meet together on the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month for a season.

TLDR; Welcome Tables are a place to share life together. We eat, talk, say some prayers, and hang out. Everyone is welcome including families!

The current season of Welcome Tables is coming to a close, but sign-ups for the fall season will be coming soon!

If you want to get a sense of what a meeting is like, check out this article or these books that talk about what we do.

Ecology

Ecology is Root and Branch's initiative to connect with our wider city and world through advocacy, activism, and giving.

Logan Square Mutual Aid

We've recently been thinking about ways to get more involved in the community we're in. Root & Branch is unique in that it's not a super local church - we've got folks attending from different parts of Chicago - but Logan Square has been our physical meeting location for a while, so we thought it would be a good place to invest a little more time and energy into.

We've connected with Logan Square Mutual Aid and we're hoping to get a group of us to help out regularly at their community events. Mutual aid is just neighbors helping neighbors. It's local, it's simple, and it requires empathy, commitment, and humility. It's not charity, it's not a service project, and it purposely does not involve systems that have often hurt people more than helped them. We encourage you to read/learn more about mutual aid!

If you're interested, let us know by emailing Tim [at] rootandbranchchurch.org.

Chicago Community Jail Support

Jail support is a mutual aid network that stands in solidarity with people who being detained at Cook County Jail by being there to offer free food, phone calls, coats, drinks, information on rides, and a listening to ear as they are released from jail. This makes a real difference as people are often left without a way to get home or stay warm upon release. It’s great way to put compassion into action and work toward abolition.

Lighthouse Foundation

Root and Branch is a founding partner with Lighthouse Foundation. Lighthouse Foundation is a grassroots faith-based organization advocating for justice for the black queer community in Chicago. Our work begins in Boystown--focusing on ensuring welcome for all people in that neighborhood as well as full economic and social participation there. As a church community, we will be learning more about this work throughout the year, by getting to know Lighthouse Church and talking about this work in our services. As we engage this work, there might be protests we attend as a church, letters to sign and write, parties and events to plan, speeches to make, and there will definitely be people to meet and things to learn!

Ecology Giving

During All Together Church, we often highlight various organizations doing justice and activism work. We also donate all the money we receive during service to those organizations. Here are a list of organizations that have been a part of our Ecology Giving initiative in the last two years:

SOUL (Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation)
HANA Center
Brave Space Alliance
Lighthouse Foundation
Disciples of Christ Reconciliation Ministry
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression
ChiGivesBack
Midwest Access Coalition
People for Community Recovery Our House Therapy Collective