BreadBreakers Community Dinner: Dialogue Across Divides

The election may be over, but the important work of talking to one another is just beginning. Join BreadBreakers for a Community Dinner at Lake Anne Plaza and be a part of blazing the trail to a kinder, more productive, more connected way of doing discourse.

At BreadBreakers dinners, we gather around a common dinner table and, for just a couple hours, set aside the debates and have a real conversation. We practice the skill - and it IS a skill! - of listening and leading with curiosity, instead of only trying to win the argument. Rather than debate, we try to understand what makes each other tick. Why we feel the way we feel. What life stories and experiences lay beneath those group affiliations and opinions. We work to dig beneath the simplistic labels and see each other as the complex, nuanced people that we are.

Here’s how it works: unlike most BreadBreakers dinners, this BreadBreakers Community Dinner will convene multiple table groups at once all for the common purpose of telling our stories, trying to understand each other, and practicing being in community with those who are different from us. We'll split into table groups of 8-9 people and a table host, enjoy the music, and spend the evening together all working at the same goal of not convincing one another, but just empathizing and learning.

Food will be provided for free!

Join us, invite a friend, and be a part of the movement to mend our fractured society and normalize a better way of talking with one another.

BreadBreakers is an initiative by Restoration United Methodist Church in Reston, VA, and many from Restoration will be in attendance to participate and put this dinner on, but the program and our dinners are secular in nature. All faiths and all stripes are welcomed.