Sit at the potluck table where you don’t know anyone. That’s how strangers become church family.

Familiar seating is the default everywhere, and it quietly guarantees the room never changes. You sit with the people you know, they sit with theirs, and everybody leaves having met nobody. Choosing the awkward table costs about ten minutes. After that it stops being awkward and the table is no longer strangers.

The next time there is food and open seating, go where you know nobody. Open with something dull, the weather or the food, because dull questions are easy to answer. Stay for the whole meal rather than leaving at the first gap.