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From Dave Tomlinson,Ìýwriter and Vicar of St Luke’s Holloway in London:

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For the past twenty years, my life has revolved around two round tables. The first, our large dining table: a beautiful piece of pine furniture crafted by a woman carpenter in Yorkshire.

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My greatest joy is hosting a gang of friends around this table, eating and drinking, swapping new ideas and telling stories that make us laugh or cry. I especially love it when there’s too many to fit and we become a glorious scrum of bodies, food, drink and conversation that rollick and fuse in fun and friendship.

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I can’t imagine how many unrepeatable nights we’ve shared around that table with friends at Christmas, New Year and dozens of ordinary days. A highlight was when I cooked scouse (Liverpool’s signature dish) for a host of pals on Global Scouse Day!

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The other table is the round altar at St Luke’s where, as the erstwhile vicar, over a thousand times I invited all and sundry to a feast of God’s unconditional love: women and men, black and white, gay and straight, Christians, doubters and atheists. One Holocaust Memorial Day, a group of Jewish friends joined us around the table. Muslims and Buddhists have stood there, pagans too, all in recognition that our most fundamental identity is as fellow humans.

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Such inclusion may be unconventional, but I base it on the practice of Jesus who vexed the establishment by eating and drinking with the wrong people – those who didn’t belong to the respectable religious club but who he treated as friends.

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I believe the image of a round table symbolises brilliantly the sort of faith required in the 21st century, the kind of society most people want too: that of generosity, companionship, equality and dialogue. Surely our world needs more collaboration, more shared imagination.ÌýÌý

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In my so-called ‘retirement’, among other things, in pubs, cafes, churches and other public places, I hope to help facilitate further round table conversations about faith in a changing world – maybe cook up the odd pan of scouse to help the process along. At its best, communion is a way of life, not just a religious ritual.