CCM: You regularly mention the word “communion” in this context. Andrew, our readers might know you best through the Christmas articles that you write for us year after year. So, how does that idea tie into these particular conversations?
AG: I think communion is a bit of posture. What I love, and what I would like to bring in is this idea, is that we’re all coming to the table curious about God. Not sure of…? We’re still discovering, hopefully…in a relationship you’re constantly discovering one another. In conversation, that’s part of what conversation prompts is discovery of one another. I’m asking you about you, you’re asking about me, we’re listening, we’re interacting. I see communion as an interaction between us and God, where we’re actually listening and talking, as a conversation with God. God’s the one who set the table. Mark and I get to set the table for Dinner Conversations, and invite our guests in. God is the one through Jesus who has set the table for communion.

We’re all invited, that’s why it’s safe, because we’re all invited, regardless of who you are, or where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, or any of that.

ML: The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Mama wrote that. She wrote that song. Anyway, she’s dead, but she wrote that. It is true. I think of it in more simple terms, that we just eat and talk. Hopefully it will go somewhere good, and if it doesn’t it’ll hit the editing floor. I think what I want is for us to forget the cameras are even there. When I do a live video, I’ve never stopped on a video to change the tape. They better stagger the tapes, cause Mark ain’t stopping. The camera is just another set of eyes in the seat. In my eyes, that camera is a person.

CCM: Mark, we love how you introduce the start of each Dinner Conversations with something to the effect of, “We have an open seat at the table.”
ML: We want them, and through Facebook Live and through all these, everybody can comment. We know what they’re thinking, they’re adding to it. It is a conversation. They just do it from their homes on their computer or their phone and join in on the conversation.

Mark Lowry, CCM Magazine - image

photo: Kelly Jobe

AG: I think, even extending past social media or comments, is that if we example, I think it requires to learn the art of something like conversation. It was exampled to me as a kid growing up. My dad would sit around the table with us at dinner and ask, “What do you feel about ‘this?’ “What do you think about ‘that?’” Even as a six year old, I was asked how I felt about something, as if what I was thinking and feeling was a legitimate response in a very adult world.

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