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Room At the Table - Advent Resources

Albert Bogle November 18, 2025 0 0
Room At the Table - Advent Resources

‘Room at the Table’ is a compelling Advent theme for all of us within the Sanctuary First Community to journey with, not only during Advent, but into 2026. It’s an evocative phrase that invites us to be generous and open handed towards each other and indeed to practise hospitality to the stranger in need as well as for those we love and cherish. We have developed an exciting Connect Bible Study For small groups to travel together through the season. It’s available for free online or you can order print copies.

‘Room at the Table’ speaks of expectation and acceptance. It is a kind of prefiguring of the Kingdom of Heaven being born in a human heart. It is to hear the voice of God saying there is a place at the table in my Kingdom set for you. 

Advent is a time of journeying, waiting, preparing and expectation. These are all activities related to welcome and homecoming.They also speak of the inward longing within all of our hearts to find a spiritual home, a place where we know we belong and where we are accepted. 

The story of Advent is primarily one of God journeying towards us, but it also uncovers unnumbered stories of very diverse people discovering they too are on a journey towards God. As you read this perhaps you too are thinking that’s me. Of course you might be also asking how will I be accepted, will I be too late? Am I fooling myself? Is there a table to sit at? Is there a God? Is there a homecoming?

I guess that’s what I was thinking when I wrote the this year’s Christmas single, ‘Room at the Table’ I got really excited about the song, but I knew it wasn’t there as yet. So I sent it through to Iain Jamieson, my songwriting partner known as ‘The Doc,’ and he added the lines: “Let’s break bread now, we’ll be fed now, be a place for all to share”. That was it the song was nearly there, however, there was just one more person to take the material and turn it into a Christmas Single, my good friend Graeme Duffin of Wet, Wet, Wet. He asked me who should it sound like, I said make it sound a bit like Springsteen, it needs to reflect my age and background. Let’s call it Scottish Heartland Rock, he smiled. Within a couple of days the track was ready for vocals and that is how Room at the Table was born!

The creativity wasn’t finished. Consider this, as you begin to explore the theme very soon you encounter all sorts of people on the journey to the table of the King. To put it in a Christmas context the stable was and is a symbol of the table of King Jesus. Think of the journey Joseph and Mary made to encounter Jesus. The journey the shepherds made to find themselves known by God. There were also foreigners, wisemen from the east, perhaps a little later but they made an incredible journey. So we too will have our personal journeys with doubts and struggles to encounter King Jesus, and that’s when I had the inspiration to ask writer Lily Cathcart to write five short modern Christmas stories for a new series Stories Round the Table. These will be posted weekly from 2 December on our blog throughout Advent in text and audio version and will also feature as a podcast.

Then there is the waiting. There is a certain degree of patience required hoping that those invited will come. Those who have arrived need to be patient as others come from distant journeys. The ‘big brother syndrome’ always has a tendency to emerge as time passes and the table places are not yet filled. Yet the patience of the King continues ‘Room at the table’ speaks of his open heart and preparation he knows is required to make the journey, and to wait for the coming of others. 

No doubt the place of waiting will resonate with us all at some point in our lives. However the most hopeful of all our spiritual feelings is that of expectation. When we literally gather around the Lord’s Table for Communion it is much more than a remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is filled with expectation that there is room at the table for our identity in time and in eternity. It is with this sense of hope that we leave room for expectation and approach our Advent Labyrinth a series of audio meditations that you can experience on our website and app or use in your own service/small group gathering.

In the coming weeks and months we hope to invite members of the Sanctuary First Community to help us enact out the meaning of 'Room at the Table' in such a way that we will see many more people start out on the journey to enter into the Kingdom of God. 

Perhaps this Advent as you begin to make your preparations for Christmas you might literally think about what it would mean to leave room at your table for the unexpected guest. 

Why not invite a friend to join with you as we launch ‘Room at the Table’ in the Allanwater Brewhouse in Bridge of Allan on Wednesday 3 December.  Book your tickets and bring your unexpected guest to an evening of songs, stories and pizzas.

And there's more! We will be hosting a Sanctuary First Christmas Carol Concert live at the Mayfield Centre, Stirling in conjunction with St Ninians Community Church & the Jazz Praise band on December 16!

Albert Bogle