BreadBreakers Community Dinner: Dialogue Across Divides - Climate Change Edition

Join BreadBreakers for a Community Dinner in Reston and be a part of blazing the trail to a kinder, more productive, more connected way of doing discourse. Our theme this month is "Climate Change - Without the Heat"!

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: at BreadBreakers Community Dinners, we 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! For those who are able to provide a donation to help fund BreadBreakers, a donation option will be made available.

We'll have vegan and gluten-free options available. If you have any additional dietary restrictions (Celiac Disease, etc.) please let us know at BreadBreakersInterest@gmail.com so that we can implement the appropriate food handling procedures.

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, an initiative by Restoration United Methodist Church in Reston, VA, is a religiously inclusive community. All faiths and all stripes are welcomed.

Please note that this dinner will be in a different location than normal! We aren't able to use the Lake Anne Community Center this month, so we'll be meeting at the Thoreau Place Condominium Community Room.

The address listed is for the Safeway grocery store across the road from Thoreau Place. Please park at the Safeway and follow the walking path to the Thoreau Place Condominiums. The path will take you through a lit tunnel under South Lakes Dr, then into the Thoreau community, where you'll enter the main buildings. We'll have signs and volunteers there to guide the way!