Building a Coffeehouse instead of a church

Mark Batterson, pastor National Community Church, has a great word for those believers that love to “go to church”. Mark was a church planter who started a church in a movie theater in Union Station, because they had no money as a startup. As the church grew, pastor-friends would ask him, when was he going to get a “church”? As the new start started to reach unchurched and dechurched twenty-somethings he realized there was no way he could vacate “such a strategic spiritual beachhead”. Their vision is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout DC. They now own the largest coffeehouse in Capitol Hill, and in 2007, it was voted the #2 coffeehouse in metro DC.

Here’s Mark’s word for us:

“So why did we build a coffeehouse instead of a church building? Because Jesus didn’t hang out in synagogues. He hung out at wells. Wells weren’t just places to draw water. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffehouses are postmodern wells.To borrow the sociological term, our coffeehouse is a third place where the church and community can cross paths……Too many churches expect unchurched people to come to them, but the church is called to go to the unchurched people. The church is called to compete for the kingdom in the marketplace.”

What do you think?

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