Where can you go to hang out in your town?
Categories: Culture, Living our faith
Sometimes the simplest of phrases catch my ear and stick with me. Today it was a random comment by Tim Stevens, written on his blog. He was referring to Ebenezers, the coffee shop run by Mark Batterson’s church, National Community Church. The coffee shop was built as a place, he said, for the church and the community to hang out. That was it: the church and the community to hang out.
How do you do that?
Assuming that most churches will never build a coffee shop, how do you provide opportunities for the church to hang out with the community? In this instance I’m (for once) not necessarily referring to the individual within the church, but the church as a recognizable community figure. How does the church build its “brand” in the community?
I think the best answers to that question are creative, outward-focused opportunities for the church to build into their surroundings. I’d love to see more creative solutions than are usually proposed for this, solutions like art shows hanging in the church hallways, refreshments being served at community events provided by the church, tutoring services for neighborhood kids. Or maybe something as simple as having church members hang at the local hot spot on Friday nights. For us, that would be outside the movie theater sitting in front of Starbucks.
How do you do it? Where do you go to hang out with the community as a church?
August 15th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Love that the above church has a coffee shop to “hang out” with the public. I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time. To be part of the culture, but still not of this world and to be able to share all the great things about Christ without the threat of being preaching…but just living it. Wish there were more places like this!
August 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
You said it sista! Torrence and I, heard a speaker at a Catalyst Lab 2 years ago, explain
that that’s how Starbuck’s has cornered the market…..they have become, “America’s Front
Porch”! Neighbors used to hang out and experience community, sippin’ tea and rockin
on the front porch……but now Starbucks has become that meeting place. And for the Christian,
you would be avoiding the world you were created to impact, and love, if you didn’t
attend the new front porch!
August 20th, 2008 at 1:44 am
A friend and former pastor of mine at catalystfaith.wordpress.com suggested a church community attend a gay pride parade and pass out water bottles to the crowd with no agenda, no tracts. Just to be there and helpful. And available.