Ebenezers - Faith Formation 2020

Q SHORTS
CULTURE | FUTURE | CHURCH | GOSPEL
POSTMODERN WELLS:
Creating A Third Place
by MARK BATTERSON
POSTMODERN WELLS:
CREATING A THIRD PLACE
by MARK BATTERSON
Mark Batterson serves as lead
pastor of National Community Church
(theaterchurch.com) in Washington,
DC. NCC was recognized as one of
the 25 Most Innovative Churches in
America by Outreach Magazine in
2007. One church with eight services
in four locations, NCC is focused on
reaching emerging generations. 73% of
NCCers are single twenty-somethings
and 70% come from an unchurched
or dechurched background. The vision
of NCC is to meet in movie theaters at
metro stops throughout the metro DC
area. NCC also owns and operates the
largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. In
2007, Ebenezers was recognized as the
#2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by
AOL CityGuide. Mark has two Masters
Degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School in Chicago, Illinois. He is the
author of a best-selling book, In a Pit
with a Lion on a Snowy Day. And he is
a daily blogger at markbatterson.com.
Mark is married to Lora and they live
on Capitol Hill with their three children:
Parker, Summer, and Josiah.
The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as
well as on the steeple of the church. I am claiming that Jesus was
not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross
between two thieves; on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads
so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and
Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves
curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that
is what he died about and that is where churchmen ought to be and
what churchmen should be about.
- George McLeod
A few years ago I had a Starbucks moment. I was studying for a
sermon at a Starbucks on Capitol Hill, and I usually tune out the mood
music, but one line of lyrics slipped through my reticular activating
system. I’d never heard the song before and I didn’t know who the
artist was. And maybe I just had too much caffeine in my system, but
the juxtaposition of words struck me:
There’s a church on the periphery, Lady of our Epiphany.
And I had a thought as I sipped my vanilla latte: as long as the
church stays on the periphery, our culture will never experience an
epiphany.
Over the last few decades, the church has been pushed further and
further onto the periphery of culture. Or in many instances, the church
has retreated to the comfortable confines of its Christian subculture.
So we are inside our churches looking out, but we really find ourselves
on the outside looking in. God is calling the church out of the church
and back into the middle of the marketplace.
I realize that I pastor one church in one small corner of the kingdom.
And I don’t want to project my passions onto others. But if we are going
to influence the spiritual tide in America, the church needs to stop
retreating and start redeeming. The church needs to stop criticizing
and start creating. The church needs to stop seeking shelter and start
competing for the truth.
Editor | Jeff Shinabarger
Managing Editor | Joanna DeWolf
Paul didn’t boycott the Aeropagus. 1 He didn’t stand outside in a picket
line arguing against idolatry. Paul marched into the marketplace of
ideas and went toe-to-toe with the most brilliant minds in ancient
Athens competing for the truth. Staying on the periphery is one thing
the Apostle Paul could never be accused of.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
CREATING A THIRD PLACE
As long as the church stays on
the periphery, our culture will
never experience an epiphany.
CHURCH STEEPLES
There was a time, just a few centuries ago, when nautical maps of Europe
had legends that included the location of churches on land. Church
steeples doubled as navigational tools for ship captains. Churches were
typically built on choice real estate in the center of town or atop the
highest hill. And in some places, there were ordinances against building
anything taller than the church steeple so it would occupy the place
closest to heaven. 2 Nothing was more visible on the pre-modern skyline
than church steeples. And in a sense, church steeples symbolized the
place of the church in culture. There was a day, in the not too distant
past, when church was the center of culture. Church was the place to go.
Church was the thing to do. Nothing was more visible than the church
steeple. Nothing was more audible than the church bells. And it might
be a slight exaggeration, but all the pre-modern church had to do was
raise a steeple and ring a bell.
Is it safe to say that things have changed?
The church no longer enjoys a cultural monopoly! We are the minority
in post-Christian America. And the significance of that is this: we can’t
afford to do church the way it’s always been done. Our incarnational
tactics must change.
Don’t get me wrong: the message is sacred. But methods are not. And the
moment we anoint our methods as sacred, we stop creating the future
and start repeating the past. We stop doing ministry out of imagination
and start doing ministry out of memory. And if we think that raising the
steeple or ringing the bells will get the job done; the church in America
will end up right where the Israelites found themselves in Judges 2:10:
After that generation died, another generation grew up who
did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things
he had done for Israel.
According to George Barna, 61% of twenty-somethings who grew
up going to church stop going to church at some point during their
twenties. They become dechurched. They still feel connected to God in
some form or fashion, but there is a disconnect with organized religion
and the institutional church. And for one reason or another, they are
checking out of the church at an alarming rate.
I love the church. I believe in the church. And I’ve poured ten years of
blood, sweat, and tears into the church I have the privilege of pastoring
— National Community Church in Washington, DC. But the church needs
to change! And change always starts with some honest self-reflection.
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Some people hear statistics like the one just cited — 61% of twentysomethings that grew up in church leave the church — and they wonder
what’s wrong with this generation. I think that’s the wrong reaction. I
can’t help but wonder what’s wrong with the church.
In the words of Pogo: we have seen the enemy and he is us.
The church is not a building.
You can’t go to church because
you are the church!
NOW MEETING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU
I entered the church planting arena ten years ago with the traditional
mindset: meet in rented facilities until you can buy or build a church
building. And then our church started meeting in the movie theaters
at Union Station, four blocks from the Capitol.
More than twenty-five million people pass through the Station every
year making it the most visited destination in the nation’s capital. We
have forty food court restaurants right outside our front entrance. We
have large movie screens and comfortable theater seats. And not only
do we have a bus stop, train stop, and parking garage...we have our
own subway system that drops off right at our front door.
Every once in a while someone will ask me when we’re going to “get
a church.” The question is innocent enough and I’m sure it’s wellintentioned, but it does belie a common misconception. Let me clear
it up: the church is not a building. You can’t go to church because you
are the church! Besides that, why build a “church” when you’ve got a
Union Station?
It’s hard to imagine a more strategic spiritual beachhead than
Union Station, and somewhere along the way I had a paradigm shift.
Actually, I remember exactly where I was. I was walking home from
Union Station and I had a vision at the corner of 5th and F streets, NE.
There weren’t any angelic choirs. No graffiti on the wall. But it was
definitely a road to Damascus experience. 3 We were still a neophyte
church trying to get one location established, but I could envision
NCC locations dotting the metro map. I felt like God was calling us to
meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the Washington, DC
area. Over the past decade, National Community Church has morphed
into one church with four locations. Three of them are movie theaters,
including our latest launch in the heart of Georgetown.
Why movie theaters? In our experience, people who have never
darkened a church door find it threatening. They don’t know what to
expect, how to act, or what to wear. It is simple sociology. Most people
feel somewhat awkward or uncomfortable going someplace they have
never been before. But a movie theater? Everyone has caught a flick at
a movie theater. It’s a safe place sociologically.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
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For us, movie theatres are safe
places for people to explore
spiritual truth.
For us, movie theaters are safe places for people to explore spiritual
truth. And over the years, meeting in cultural hotspots has become
part of our spiritual DNA.
Let me try to put it in theological perspective.
In the Old Testament there were two places of worship: the Temple
and the Tabernacle. The Temple was stationary. The Israelites would
come to the Temple to worship God. The other place of worship was
the Tabernacle and it was portable. Every time the cloud moved, the
production team would tear down the tabernacle and when the cloud
stopped they’d set it up again.
Most churches are Temples — stationary places of worship. And there
is certainly nothing wrong with that. But we’ve come to terms with the
fact that National Community Church is a tabernacle. Part of that is
by default. Property in our neck of the woods runs about ten million
an acre. But part of it is by design. We love redeeming cultural places
and using them for God’s purposes. And for what it’s worth, the early
church didn’t have buildings. It wasn’t until the fourth century AD
that buildings became par for the course.
In his book, Unfreezing Moves, Bill Easum makes an insightful
observation:
The twenty- first century congregation is becoming mobile
again. Property is looked upon the same way the Israelites
looked upon the Ark of the Covenant. It is something to be
picked up and moved to wherever God is leading you.
And I agree with his assessment of the future. A new breed of churches
is emerging.
In this time of traumatic transition, we see institutional
Christianity being left behind because it is tethered to its
physical moorings and can’t join Jesus on the way. In its place
we see the rise of House Churches, Storefront Churches, Cell
Churches, Cyber Churches, Cafe Churches, Bar Churches,
Multiple-Site Churches, and Biker Churches.
Of course, I’d add theater churches and coffeehouse churches to the mix!
POSTMODERN WELLS
Along with our movie theater locations, National Community Church
owns and operates the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. After eight
years of working like it depends on us and praying like it depends
on God, we opened the doors to Ebenezers Coffeehouse on National
Coffee Day, March 15, 2006.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
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We opened Ebenezers because we wanted to create a place where
the church and community could cross paths seven days a week. To
borrow the term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, you could call it
a ‘third place’. Back in 1989, Oldenburg wrote a book called The Great
Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and
Other Hangouts at the Heart of A Community which introduced the
‘third place’ concept:
The third place is a generic designation for a great variety
of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal,
and happily anticipated gathering of individuals beyond
the realms of home and work...The first place is the home
— the most important place of all. It is the first regular and
predictable environment of the growing child and the one that
will have greater effect upon his or her development. It will
harbor individuals long before the workplace is interested
in them and well after the world of work casts them aside.
The second place is the work setting, which reduces the
individual to a single, productive role. It fosters competition
and motivates people to rise above their fellow creatures. But
it also provides the means to a living, improves the material
quality of life, and structures endless hours of time for a
majority who could not structure it on their own. 4
In simple terms, it is a place besides home and work where people
hang out. In a culture where third places have been diminishing for
quite some time, the ramifications are significant. For it is in these
third places where community bonds are established, where living life
together becomes enjoyable and where many people can contribute to
societal decision making.
To give you a glimpse into the cultural capital this book has, Starbucks
makes all retail management read this in order to understand the
importance of the space they are trying to create. It has nothing
to do with coffee, it has everything to do with the “core settings of
informal public life as essential for the health of both communities
and ourselves.”
And God gave us an amazing location for our third place. Ebenezers
is located five blocks from the U.S. Capitol, one block from Union
Station, and kitty-corner to Station Place, the largest office building
in Washington, DC. Our property also forms the Northwest corner of
the Capitol Hill historic district.
Every day we serve hundreds of customers that live and work in our
Capitol Hill neighborhood. And in the evening and on the weekend,
our performance space doubles as a venue where we host everything
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
CREATING A THIRD PLACE
from concerts to open-mike nights to community meetings. We also
hold Saturday night services in the space. The Saturday night message
is actually recorded in High-Def, downloaded to hard drives, and
delivered to our movie theater locations on Sundays.
We aren’t a church with a
coffeehouse. Ebenezers is a
coffeehouse where a church
happens to meet on Saturday
nights.
But here is an important point: we aren’t a church with a coffeehouse.
Ebenezers is a coffeehouse where a church happens to meet on Saturday
nights. It’s not that we’re a covert church operation. We’re neither
covert nor overt. We just are who we are. Ebenezers is a very organic
outgrowth of our entrepreneurial church culture. And the pictures on
the wall, the sleeve on the cup, and the information at the coffee bar
certainly don’t hide the fact that Ebenezers is owned and operated by
National Community Church. But we don’t flaunt that fact either. We
just try to serve a great cup of coffee with a Christlike attitude.
So why would we build a coffeehouse instead of a church building?
Especially when nobody on our staff had any coffeehouse experience
or expertise before we started construction. The motivation is simple.
Jesus didn’t hang out at synagogues. Jesus hung out at wells. Wells
were more than just a place to draw water. Wells were natural
gathering places in ancient culture. Think of them as third places.
Jesus didn’t expect people to come to him. He crossed ancient cultural
boundaries and went to them. And that is what the incarnation is all
about. So instead of building a traditional church building where
people gather once a week, we built a postmodern well where people
gather all day every day. And instead of water, we serve coffee.
One interesting footnote.
According to coffee lore, the church may be responsible for the
popularity of coffee. Way back in the 16th century, advisors to Pope
Clement VIII wanted him to declare coffee a drink of the devil because
of its popularity amongst Muslims. Pope Clement must have liked his
double shot of espresso because he said, “This devil’s drink is so good
we should cheat the devil by baptizing it.”
THE BACKSTORY
To fully appreciate the motivation behind building a coffeehouse
instead of a church building, you need to know the backstory. Before our
coffeehouse was a coffeehouse it was a crack house. It was actually listed
as a nuisance property with the DC government. And it was completely
dilapidated. There was graffiti all over the deteriorating walls. And
cinder blocks were in the windows and doors to keep drug users out.
We have a picture of that old building hanging in our new building
because it paints a picture of redemption. It gives our coffeehouse
some character.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
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We also had pseudo-train tracks installed in the floor of our coffeehouse
because we wanted to tell the backstory. Long before its dilapidation,
the original building we bought was a diner that served Union Station
travelers before there was food service on the trains. We actually have a
copy of the original deed, dated 1908, hanging on the original walls that
we restored in our reconstruction. For what it’s worth, the original cost
of construction was $2000 and the diner served “butter and eggs.”
In a sense, building a coffeehouse returned this historic piece of property
back to its original use. And The Committee of 100 on the Federal City
recognized our redemptive endeavor with a Vision Award.
For its demonstration of the potential for imagination and
creative energy to give new life and purpose to a forlorn building
by envisioning a community benefit where others saw blight.
The revitalization of 201 F Street, NE, the long neglected, vacant
building into the heart of a new vibrant coffeehouse stands as a
symbol of the value of adaptive reuse.
Now here’s my point. If we had attempted to build a church building on
this piece of property, I’m certain we would have experienced tremendous
resistance from our community. But building a coffeehouse earned us
tremendous community capital. Not only did the major networks and
newspapers in the DC area do stories on Ebenezers, but our neighbors
loved us for creating a place where they can hang out. It’s that simple.
Instead of a church building where they might visit once a week, if at
all, we created a third place where they can sip a cup of coffee, have a
conversation, and use our free Wi-Fi seven days a week.
THE STARBUCKS LITMUS TEST
We knew going into this endeavor that Christian coffeehouses don’t
have the greatest reputation. So we had to fight that perception. We also
knew that we had to pass the Starbucks litmus test. Starbucks sets the
standard in the coffeehouse industry. We knew our customers would
have expectations and those expectations would be based on Starbucks
whether we liked it or not. And we didn’t want our coffeehouse to be
a poor reflection on the kingdom of God. So we set about to create a
coffeehouse that would be first-class and fully-operational. Our goal
was to exceed expectations in terms of product and aesthetic. And I
think we have. In 2007, Ebenezers was voted the #2 coffeehouse in
the DC metro area by AOL CityGuide.
It’s been incredibly gratifying to hear the unsolicited comments of
our customers. One of my favorite online reviews likened Ebenezers
to the Taj Mahal. That may be taking it a little far, but we’ll take what
we can get.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
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The new Ebenezers Coffee Shop created by this group is the
“taj mahal” of coffee shops. The basement has been outfitted
to be used as a theater space. It sets a new standard--difficult
for those of us that are for-profits to reach. I have been
negative about believing that commercial places outside
of Station Place could attract Station Place patrons, but I
think the quality of the “offer” at Ebenezer’s will prove me
wrong. I haven’t taken photographs yet, but “wow” is the
exclamation in order.
My all-time favorite customer comment card said: It kicks the hell out
of Starbucks! And while I don’t think you can compare one coffeehouse
with a chain of more than thirteen thousand, being an independent
coffeehouse doesn’t hurt us in a town with an anti-establishment
sentiment.
We have a core value at National Community Church: do it right and
do it big.
I just don’t think God wants us to do things halfway. Doing something
halfway typically does more harm than good. And the bottom line is
this: good isn’t good enough. We knew that in order for Ebenezers to
be a successful enterprise, we had to exceed expectations.
I’ve always been captivated by something Dorothy Sayers said:
No crooked table legs or ill-fitted drawers ever, I dare say,
came out of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth.
I think we forget that Jesus was
in carpentry before he went into
ministry. He was an artisan. And
his ministry was shaped by his
artistry.
I think we forget that Jesus was in carpentry before he went into
ministry. He was an artisan. And his ministry was shaped by his
artistry. Whether it was turning water into wine or likening faith to
a mustard seed, Jesus did what he did with artistic excellence. The
point? No matter what the endeavor, excellence honors God.
MINISTRY BY PROXIMITY
So why build a coffeehouse instead of a church?
Listen, it has to be a God-ordained vision. Don’t go into the coffeehouse
business unless you’re called into the coffeehouse business. But here
are a few reasons why the church needs to create third places. And
creating third places can take lots of different forms — everything
from an afterschool program to a community center to soccer fields.
One reason I love having our church offices right above our coffeehouse
is because I’m rubbing shoulders with neighbors every day. It is ministry
by proximity. And one of the great challenges many Christians face is
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becoming spiritually insulated by losing touch with the culture we’re
trying to reach. It is so easy for us to withdraw to the comfortable
confines of our Christian sub-culture. But that isn’t the example Jesus
set. He crossed every conceivable demographic and psychographic
line. He touched lepers; talked with Samaritans; hung out with tax
collectors and befriended prostitutes. By building a coffeehouse, we
have created a place where those connections happen week in and
week out. It’s amazing how many people walk into Ebenezers to get a
cup of coffee and end up finding a church.
Not long ago I met someone after one of our Saturday night services.
And I knew I knew the face, but I couldn’t place him. Then it dawned
on me. I’d probably passed him on the sidewalk outside Ebenezers
a hundred times. He lives in the neighborhood and frequents
Ebenezers. He told me he hadn’t been to church in fifteen years, but
he decided to try it out. National Community became a church home
for him that night.
We have a motto as a business: coffee with a cause. We knew going
into the coffeehouse business that it takes most coffeehouses about
three years to break even financially. Ebenezers has turned a profit
since day one. Part of it is our location. But I honestly believe God
is blessing our business because every penny of profit goes back into
our community events, like our annual Easter Egg Hunt, and our
international humanitarian efforts, like the orphanage in Uganda
that we built with our own hands and paid for with our own money.
Even customers who aren’t part of our church community can get
behind those kinds of endeavors. So our coffee doesn’t just taste
good. It feels good.
And one final reason we built a coffeehouse instead of a church is
because we’re not trying to reach people who go to church. We’re
trying to connect with people who hang out in coffeehouses. So why
not build one? Nearly seventy percent of our constituents at National
Community Church are either unchurched or dechurched. We’re trying
to shape people who didn’t grow up in church or quit going to church.
We want to reach the person that would never darken a church door,
but they need their caffeine fix every morning.
One of our outreach programs at NCC is an introduction to the Christian
faith called Alpha. It is a thirteen-week class designed for those who
have more questions than answers. During our last Alpha course,
approximately one hundred people gathered in our performance space
at Ebenezers once a week to explore the claims of Christ. And many of
them have never attended National Community Church. They simply
picked up an invitation card we put on our coffee bar.
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POSTMODERN WELLS:
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THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
I’m not sure what the future holds for Ebenezers. We’re currently
looking for a second coffeehouse location in Georgetown or Old Town
Alexandria. And I’m confident that Ebenezers will turn into a local
chain of coffeehouses in the metro DC area. After all, it’s a perfect fit
with our overall vision and DNA as a multi-site church.
We’ve also been approached by hundreds of churches asking us if we’d
consider franchising. We might. We might not. But what I am sure of
is this, the church must become a third place in culture like it once
was. And coffeehouses are one way of doing it.
I have a core conviction that gets me up early in the morning and
keeps me up late at night: there are ways of doing church that no
one has thought of yet. I believe our best days are ahead of us. And
no generation has had more potential to fulfill the Great Commission.
But if the church is going to reach the next generation, we can’t do
church the way it has always been done. We’ve got to find new ways
of incarnating the gospel. And it will look very different based on
geography and demography. But the methodology is as ancient as the
words of the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 9:22:
I have become all things to all men so that by all possible
means I might save some.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
In your community, where are the third places that people congregate
for conversations about life?
Some people consider their personal church a third place. How do you
think the greater community views your church? Would they consider
your church a third place or something different? Why?
In this short, Mark Batterson reasons, “as long as the church stays on
the periphery, our culture will never experience an epiphany.” What do
you think the church must do to get outside of the periphery of culture
and begin to shape it a fresh way? What barriers does your local church
need to overcome in your community in order for this to happen?
Batterson encourages us to move forward using our imagination and
connecting with culture to “do church” in new ways. How does the story
of his church motivate you to dream? Spend some time looking around
your community and using your imagination to dream up some new
ways to “do church.”
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END NOTES
1 Acts 17:22
2 Martin Lindstrom, Brand Sense, p. 172.
3 Acts 9:3
4 Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place, p. 16.
© Mark Batterson and Fermi Project, 2008
All Rights Reserved.
www.fermiproject.com
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