While living in Philadelphia I have had the opportunity to work for a couple who are dear friends from church. They own a coffee shop called Great Awakenings Cafe. It is located in the Frankford/Northwood section of Northeast Philadelphia. My time in the shop has been quite strategic because this is the area where we hope to plant a church upon our return from Sovereign Grace's Pastor's College.
The coffee shop has become a place where conversations quickly turn into friendships. Again and again there has been opportunity to befriend those from the neighborhood and learn of their stories. It doesn't take much small talk before you are listening to the vingettes that have defining significance upon their lives.
The small talk usually invovles particular interests or disinterests. There is an ajoining list of reasons for their given tasts and plenty of dogmatism to go with it. This is where you come to realize that people are meaning-makers. They search and search for answers and finally entrench themselves in some particular theory. They are attempting to make sense of this world in which they find themselves. They are searching for an anchor for their souls.
The small talk eventually progresses into more personal details. You eventually get an idea of their upbringing and of the situations that most define how they view themselves and their world. Most of these conversations lose their volume when others enter the shop. These are the vulnerable moments of one's story; broken homes, broken marriages, absent parents, sexual and physical abuse, drug addiction, prostitution etc. As a listener it doesn't take long to feel what Christ felt in Matthew 9:36-37. "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'"
What a privelege - to graphically see ourselves and this world for what it is - broken! And then to ponder our suffering Servant who came to us and took upon himself our stains and our brokenness. In perfect obedience he fully absorbed our just wrath. And now by grace through faith we become apart of his story. His accomplishment becomes our defining significance. We no longer remain in our guilt and shame for he has come near and made us new creatures in Christ Jesus whereby we now have full access to the Father and peace in the Spirit. We have an anchor for our souls!
These coffee-shop-moments are amazing gospel opportunities. What a glorious message to proclaim to the souls that are captive, blind and oppressed (Luke 4:18). Jesus Christ has come to set them free and his Spirit is powerful to do so for he has done it for us!
In the next posts, I hope to give you some stories of individuals whom I have been so blessed to meet at the shop. I will ask that you would pray for God to bring new life to the lost and potentially a new local church to this community.