Michael McNichols:
Finding Meaning in Ritual

Evangelical Christians today often have difficulty finding meaning in the Lord’s Supper. For many, it has been relegated to the margins of the church’s common life. Michael McNichols, director of the Fuller California Coast regional campus, wanted to address this—and his new book, Shadow Meal: Reflections on Eucharist (Wipf and Stock), helps readers develop a deeper and stronger connection to the presence of Jesus in the invitation to dine at his table.

“I wrote Shadow Meal as a personal reflection,” McNichols says, “seeking to process my own struggle with finding meaning in a ritual that was infrequently practiced in my church traditions. My hope is that Shadow Meal will help other struggling pilgrims to see the table of Jesus in a more expansive and generous way, not by simply re-energizing old rituals, but by seeing the Eucharist as a framework for the essential life of the church.”

The book has hit its mark. “Mike McNichols takes a very mysterious part of our faith and turns it over and over like a gemstone so that it catches (and reflects) more Light,” comments Dean Nelson, professor of journalism and author of God Hides in Plain Sight. In his foreword to the book, Fuller President Richard J. Mouw writes: “I am grateful to Mike McNichols for writing in such an inspiring way about the joys of eating and drinking together in the presence of the divine Host. In the best sense of the term, this is very much an ‘edifying’ book. I can testify from personal experience that it stimulates the spiritual taste buds!”

Shadow Meal: Reflections on Eucharist is available at the Fuller Bookstore.