Someday I intend to write a book on all the things the seminaries fail to teach pastors.  It would fill a book!  And first on my list would be the ubiquitous ministry of and to the folding table.

The eight-foot folding table serves a pivotal role in the ministry of every church, no matter what the denomination.  Churches have been known to prosper just fine for years on end without a minister, but no church could survive a week without an abundance of folding tables.

Like the wonderful symbolism of Communion or the basin and the towel, the folding table has a theology all its own.  While the Table (with an upper-case "T") symbolizes the Christian's communion with the sacrificial death of our Lord, the table (with a lower-case "t") symbolizes the Christian's fellowship with other church members.

Around this eight-foot tribute to modern engineering, God's people hold committee meetings, study the Bible, and share potluck meals.   The table provides the perfect place for the Bibles to rest while discussing a Sunday School lesson on the perseverance of the saints.  If a committee has too many people to fit comfortably around a folding table, then the committee has too many people on it.  The adorning stains and grease marks reek of Aunt Sue's cherry cobbler and Sister Sherry's fried chicken.  A thousand fellowship meals spread before hungry worshippers have left their indelible mark.

And they multiply like rabbits.  Where was there ever a church with enough folding tables?  Count the membership and divide by eight, and the product tells how many to start with.  But then you remember that at least one is needed for each Sunday School room.  And what about the display of religious literature at the back of the foyer?  What else could there be to hold the brass bells for the bell choir?  And the pastor will need one for his computer, printer, and sermon notes for Sunday.  Oh, just go ahead and figure one folding table per active member!

But there is not only the ministry OF the folding table; there is the ministry TO the folding table.  And that's the part they neglect to tell about in seminary.  Wonderful inventions that they are; their very flexibility demands that they be set up, taken down, moved, and stacked away only to be unstacked and put back up for the next meeting or meal.

And it's the minister who is usually the only one around when ministry TO the table is needed.  McDonalds may boast of their billions of hamburgers sold, but any minister's tenure can be measured in the thousands or millions of folding-tables moved.

The children's choir director is having a lock-in at church tonight, but, of course, the tables were still left up from the Monday Night Dinner. She wants them down.  Oh, sure, she could call somebody else to come do it, but the minister is always conveniently just down the hall.

"Would you mind?" "No, I don't mind."  And I don't.  Really.  I'm not too good to put up or take down a few folding tables.  And so it happens just like that every week and has for 30 years!  I'm ALWAYS the one there.  And the tables have to be put up, taken down, or changed around what seems like a hundred times a week.

Folding tables are unwieldy, heavy and awkward.  To be strong enough they must be heavy.  To seat enough, they must be big.  They are just heavy enough that one person can lift them - barely.  When two grab hold of one, you usually wind up working and pulling against one another, making the job harder rather than easier.

They are always made out of flake board which is the heaviest wood available. But flake board is ugly and comes apart when it gets water on it, so the wood is covered with laminate.  Then the metal part is added beneath.  And they always have a lip that runs around the bottom of the table placed just so.  Just so that it cuts into your hand when you try to carry the tables.  Some of us have wised up and actually carry the tables by grabbing the folded legs instead of the lip.  That way the lip doesn't cut your hand; it cuts your wrist.

Oh, and you definitely cannot push a folding table because, of course, it folds up on you.  Literally ON YOU.  Usually your foot.  And after exactly 22 minutes of use, the metal folding parts underneath are bent and mangled so badly that it takes a ball peen hammer to get them to fold up.

And don't think you are going to get out of carrying them by stacking them on a table cart.  Yes, it is possible. But no, it is not possible to stack ten folding tables on top of each other without scratching all the laminate off the top of every other one. Wise stackers try to pile them with folding legs together, alternating laminate up and laminate down.  Sounds great, but then the folding legs lock onto one another like two teenagers with braces kissing.  And it's a proven fact - one person cannot stack folding tables on the cart alone.  Not without utterly destroying the tables.

The folks at seminary never taught me that I was going to spend half of my time wrestling with folding tables!  Perhaps they need to add a new required course called, "The Ministry of the Folding Table."  The syllabus would explain that the student will explore the double meaning of the humble folding table as a ministry tool and as the embodiment of evil.  The course would critique the pastor's pivotal role in the ministry OF the table, TO the table, and FOR the table.

After 30 years of lugging, folding, pushing, pulling, shifting, and wrestling folding tables, I could teach the course!