July Breakfast Recap

Big thanks to Danny Thomas for hosting our breakfast this morning. John (Green Pastures), Rich (Evangelical Reformed) and myself (Manitou Park) joined Pastor Danny at the new location of Grace Place at 3801 S. Union St. Grace Place along with the RDC food bank are sharing the bottom 40,000 square feet of the old Tacoma Sports Arena. Until 1982, this building filled the role of the Tacoma Dome hosting sports tournaments, boxing matches, concerts and religous gatherings. The building has also been a skating rink and most recently was the home of a printing company. The upper floor is used by Washington Energy Services while the bottom floor is being transformed by Grace Place into a sanctuary and food bank. It was really interesting to get the tour from Danny and imagine the space as it will be.

Our group of four had a really good conversation over a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. After discussing a variety of topics we dug deeper into the question of how our congregations are dealign with the passing of Christendom (that is the cultural shift initiated by the Emperor Constatine in the 4th Century that lead to Christianity being the dominant religion in the West.) Until recently, folks went to church in large part out of duty and obligation. The last couple of decades have seen that reason for church attendance diminish and left people wondering, "Why go to church?" It is not that people have become athiests, in fact only about 10% of the population would claim that title, rather people have been shifting away from organized religion to other forms of faith. You may have heard reflections of this shift when people say, "Well, I'm spiritual but I'm not religious." Now, given this reality, we asked one another how our congregations are confronting the shift in South Tacoma.

The conversation that followed was a bit too involved to summarize in a couple of paragraphs. It will have to suffice to say that each of our four congregations have both similar and different approaches. Danny and Grace Place focus on meeting the immediate physical hunger of folks and using that as an invitation to be a part of the worshiping congregatin. John at Green Pastures tries to empower his people to invite their neighbors into their homes for little family groups that eventually lead to a connection with the church. Rich at Evangelical Reformed holds closely to a reformed theology that he's seen draw folks. And me at Manitou? Well, I've chosen to try and help our congregation focus mostly on the youth of our surrounding community of Manitou. That is a very reduced summary of our conversation that I hesitate to post out of fear that the nuances of each person's answers will be lost. If it needs correction, I welcome it from Danny, Rich and John.

Next meeting. We agreed to meet again next month on Wednesday, August 5th at 8:30. Danny offered to host the event again and we agreed as it would afford others to come and see the progress of the building space. So, we'll meet next month at Grace Place at 3801 S. Union St. which is the bottom floor of the Washington Energy Services building.

Til then, grace and peace.