My sacred space is a cafe.  It’s the cafe where I work three shifts a week, serving coffee, tea, smoothies, and baked goods to the variety of people who come through our doors.  It’s nothing fancy, but it’s one of the local independent cafes in our part of Pittsburgh that attracts the graduate students, the internationals, the professors, and the eclectic and eccentric assortment of characters who inhabit Squirrel Hill.  And it’s sacred space for me precisely because the people around me there aren’t all other Christians. In fact, most are unchurched or de-churched.  And I love them.  As one who experiences God when I’m engaged in mission, I see the Holy Spirit at work when I’m around people who are just starting to get to know Jesus. The cafe becomes sacred space for me every time I have a deep conversation with a coworker or listen to a regular customer share their life-story.  The relationships I’ve been able to develop with co-workers and customers are sacred relationships.  Some people talk to their barista they way one does to the proverbial bartender, and at times I feel like taking off my shoes because I know I’m on holy ground when someone opens up to me.

I’m a pastor, but I sometimes say the place where I do the most real ministry is the cafe.  On the surface, I’m “bi-vocational” (working half-time for our church and part-time at the cafe), but I don’t really see any separation between my two jobs.  There’s been some good conversation recently in the PC(USA) about tentmaking, or bi-vocational ministry, as a viable option for more and more pastors and congregations.  The reason most often given seems to be financial: a church can’t afford a full-time pastor, so the pastor gets another job.  I applaud other pastors who do this, but I think the conversation needs to get beyond the financial reasons for tentmaking.  Here are the reasons why I chose to be bi-vocational: (1) Mission – As a new church development pastor, my “second” job gives me an entryway into the community.  Every day I meet people who would normally never set foot inside a church.  And wherever I’m meeting them is exactly where I’m called to be.  (2) Leading by Example -Working a second job that’s not explicitly a “ministry” vocation also gives me an opportunity to teach and model for members of my church how we as disciples can find meaning in our “ordinary” jobs.  Our churches are filled with people who are discontent with their work and who rarely think of their jobs as places where they can participate in the Kingdom of God. How much of that disconnect is the result of an over-professionalization of clergy?  What would it look like to really reflect in our lives the truth that almost any job can be used to serve God?

Early this morning I met my co-pastor and another friend for coffee in my sacred space.  This afternoon I’ll return and work for four hours, looking forward to whatever conversations God brings my way.  In between I’ll do a little “church work”, but in reality there’s no separation between the two – each job complements and enriches the other. Whether on church time or cafe time, I work and pray, and I look for Christ’s presence in the breaking of bread and the pouring of coffee.