Reclaiming Church

When we talk about church, we’re not talking about an “institution” or a set of rules and regulations that a group of people made up that you have to follow. When we talk about church, we’re talking about people:

• people who gather as a community to support one another in living Jesus’ way of love, justice, and peace—even when they don’t always agree on everything;
• people who gather as a community to share their stories…..their joys and struggles;
• people who gather as a community to hear stories from the Bible that reflect how God has worked in the world throughout all of time;
• people who gather as a community to look for the ways God is working in their lives and in the world today;
• people who gather as a community to figure out together how they can participate in all the marvelous things God is doing!

So don’t write us off just because we talk about being church. Come and see….come and experience….come and live and learn and work and play with us. It may just change your mind about the word, church!

Tim's Experience

I found Soul Cafe shortly after I arrived in Hood River last August 2006. Whether divinely guided to the place or not, I'm grateful to have come across it in my path.

I was new in town and living in my van, cooking with a sterno burner sometimes, and not eating much hot food. As I strolled from the bulletin board around the Oak Mall, I came across a coffee shop with an interesting twist... an openness to spiritual concepts and discussion from what I could tell, but without the oppressive air I've so often found in "churchy" projects or missions. I saw a sign advertising the "Sunday Supper" and thought I might as well check it out. After all, some hot food would be nice regardless of how it turned out the company was!;)

So I showed up Sunday to a feast of interesting food--definitely not a soup kitchen situation, but more a family meal that was open to anyone in the community. I ate and talked with some folks about life and travel and Hood River, then left with a bag of leftover tabouli and some good bread, thinking it odd that nothing of "spiritual matters" per se had come up. I was actually a little disappointed.

I've never been much for the church-made rules and machinery I've encountered in organized religion, but I've long been aware that there is, nonetheless, spirit in the world which is more than the surface reality, that there's something more vast in the universe than mere Valentine's love, and that even science proves a common binding energy in everything, so I was curious.

A couple weeks later I actually met Jill, who set me at ease with her unpretentious friendliness, and so I asked her about that spiritual side of things. She filled me in on the more spiritually focused activities she has going: the book study discussion group, and "Thin Places”—a worship experience. I found myself more involved when I realized that diversity and truly open, intelligent discussion was the norm. It's refreshing!

As I've gotten to know the soul behind the café, I've found it's a collective vision which seems to attract visionary people and grows a little with each of us. Jill, whose vision created the thing in the first place, follows a path of both personal communion with the divine, and interpersonal community. Soul Cafe is an outlet for that path into community, which I first discovered in the Sunday Suppers and which continues to unfold with the addition of the Youth Coffee House, which extends from the original attitude of encouraging kids to come and use the computers and enjoy the cafe any time we were open, including during the study group. Their parents drop by sometimes, and eat on Sunday with us, and know that they're safe and having a good time in a relaxed environment. As I said, I don't know what led me here, or leads any of us here, but I'm really glad to be a part of it. It's inspiring.