During my senior year of college, I interviewed for the Rhodes Fellowship, a program that gives US students an opportunity to study at Oxford University in England. The first round of interviews was a dinner in which applicants were paired with different interviewers during each course of the meal. Why would a formal dinner be part of the interview process? It was clear the selection committee wanted to see if applicants could use proper etiquette in preparation for future business and state dinners.
Over the years, I’ve thought many times about the protocols they expected us to know during that meal. I was grateful that my mother had trained us well by hosting formal dinners every Sunday after church. We used her wedding china, silver, and crystal, and learned formal table manners. I’ve also thought many times about the plays and performances they took me and my brother to. I am grateful that I learned how to appreciate performances of plays and classical music. I am grateful that I was able to respond to these performances not with boredom but with delight.
The world may or may not need need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers—amateurs—it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough texture, tastes, and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have. Unfortunately, however, our response to its loveliness is not always delight: It is, far more often than it should be, boredom. And that is not only odd, it is tragic; for boredom is not neutral—it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness.
(Supper of the Lamb, Robert Farrar Capon)
What Is Protocol?
What is protocol?
It’s the kind of official procedure that monarchs and presidents must follow when greeting foreign diplomats. For inspiration, families can think about Queen Esther following protocol with her husband, the king. She did not enter his presence lightly but hosted formal meals for him before presenting her requests.
The word protocol comes from a Greek word that named the first sheet glued into a manuscript. Over time, the meaning was applied to diplomatic treaties and finally to diplomatic etiquette. In Classical Conversations, we use this name for an event in which students follow the proper rules for etiquette at a meal and at a cultural event. Students learn how to use their silverware properly and when to clap during a performance.
At Classical Conversations, we designed protocol to accompany Challenge II since that is the year in which students study classical music and art. Throughout our programs, we hope to train students to love truth, goodness, and beauty. We hope to prepare students for any calling so that they will exude courtesy and grace through appropriate manners and considerate behavior. We pray they will manifest Christ’s mandate to love others through their dress, speech, and actions.
Using proper protocol demonstrates respect, whether one is observing protocol with a country’s leader or with tribes on the mission field or with one’s fellow Challenge students. Students learn to make the effort to converse with others while sharing a meal. They learn to appreciate culture together, even if their interests are diverse.
Through protocol, students learn to honor and preserve history and to uphold the standards of previous generations. It is a time to bear witness to the world of Christ-like treatment of others: “By this all men shall know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35, KJV)
How Communities Have Celebrated Protocol
The Challenge II director and families plan the protocol event which is usually held in spring. In the past, communities have attended plays, symphonies, and operas. The Challenge director either organizes the tickets to the event or enlists the help of a parent. Communities are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunities that are available in their area. This sometimes means attending the concert of a local college orchestra if a professional concert is not available.
Families prepare for attendance at the event by reviewing the plot of an opera or play or by reviewing the active listening skills they have used to attend to classical music in community. Communities often hold a quick etiquette class or two either at lunch during community or on a separate day to practice understanding a formal table setting and for the gentlemen to practice pulling out chairs for the ladies.
Over the years, communities have found a variety of ways to celebrate the fellowship of a good meal together. Some have contacted formal restaurants in their area to put together a fixed menu of multiple courses. In other communities, parents have pooled their resources to decorate and prepare a meal for the students. In many communities, there are fund-raising events to help students with the cost of their formal wear and of the meal and tickets.
Finally, families prepare their formal attire for the event. Sadly, there are too few opportunities to practice choosing proper formal attire in our casual culture. Part of the protocol event is recognizing that the way we dress also shows honor to our community, to the restaurant staff, and to the performers in the cultural event.
What Protocol Is Not
First and foremost, protocol is not a replacement for a high school prom. Far from teaching formal etiquette, most proms are a celebration of teen music and culture, not an encouragement to honor proper manners or to appreciate the beauty of a play or music performance.
Second, protocol is not starchy, stiff, and boring. It is not an occasion to encourage doing things “just for show,” but a time to train students in gracious speech and manners. For most students over the almost thirty-year history of this event, protocol has been a highlight of the Challenge program. Students find that they enjoy stepping out of their casual culture and into a different world of formal etiquette that allows them to step into the world that they have discovered in novels like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
I once led a Challenge seminar in which we considered Doug Wilson’s claims that casual dress leads to casual thinking (see his book Paideia of God). He was specifically addressing the issue of casual attire at church by both the pastor and the church members. My children and my students were shocked to learn that I used to wear a hat and gloves to church every year on Easter Sunday.
This practice was a way of showing reverence for and celebrating the beauty of the Resurrection. The new clothes represented our new birth in Christ. Sadly, we find fewer and fewer of these opportunities to show reverence for higher things. Through protocol, we can give students an opportunity to honor the true, the good, the beautiful, and one another by training them to dress, eat, converse, and observe.
Protocol is a blessing: a grace-filled time of fellowship, conversation, and appreciation of the arts and of delicious food. This gracious feast is made possible when the participants take special care with their appearance, their manners, and their consideration for one another.
Protocol allows us to feast together as communities. This practice prepares us for the coming marriage supper of the Lamb:
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. (Rev. 19:6-9, KJV)
Then, our formal attire shall be fine linen, clean and white, the clothes of our righteousness. Then, we will feast and fellowship together. Then, we will delight in the truth and goodness and beauty of God Himself.
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