Spiritual Reflections: "Missing Coffee Hour"

Spiritual Reflections from Your Pastor, For Such a Time as This
Week of the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 2020: “Missing Coffee Hour”

Dear Friends in Christ:

Many Lutherans commonly joke that their devotion to church coffee hour makes that social time a third sacrament. It would be easy to dismiss this as mere joking around and reduce the quip to one’s love for coffee. But I believe the attraction to events like coffee hours goes much deeper than the beverage. Casually gathering and lingering in person after the liturgy is an expression, an incarnation of Christian community, of communal bonding, that contributes to our sense of holistic well-being in Christ. Such koinonia – or fellowship as it has been called – occasions our getting to know each other better as we exchange information that reveals who we are to each other. This is in no way superficial. Even talking about the weather can have a certain gravitas in these days of climate change.

While coffee hour certainly cannot be considered a sacrament strictly speaking, such events may nonetheless have sacramental overtones and qualities, especially when gospel words are spoken, implied, or embodied when we gather in person and when we live out the grace-filled command of Jesus to love one another.

So it is that I dearly miss coffee hour at church, and other occasions for communal bonding and getting to know each other – lingering at the church doors in conversation, the casual conversations that typically begin and conclude church meetings in person, and the like.

Moreover, the importance of casual conversation that has no particular agenda cannot be overstated as a central feature of a pastor’s relationship with those in their care. Now that I have been in residence at Resurrection for two months, I am more and more aware of how much I am missing, particularly as a pastor in this brand new call, when coffee-hour-style interaction is not part of my current steady diet as one engaged in pastoral ministry.

Zoom meetings may begin with some informal banter as we await all participants to join in, but it’s not the same as the three-dimensionality of such interaction in person before and after in person meetings. The feature of our life together currently in my experience that most resembles coffee hour is the in-gathering every two weeks of food items for Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). As I have shared before, church members arrive donning facial coverings to drop off their donations, but we tend to linger in conversation. I try to stay for almost the full two hours, because these encounters have become invaluable to me in serving my efforts to get to know you better.

I do feel as though I am beginning to get to know members, especially those who are our more active leaders, folk who serve on committees and the Congregation Council and are otherwise actively involved in initiatives that take place on the church grounds, like the community garden with its many devoted caretakers.

But I also know that there is a whole segment of the congregation whom I have not yet had any occasion to encounter in any sustained way to get to know. They – you! – may be viewing my weekly sermon videos and perhaps reading these midweek missives, but I don’t yet know you, as those efforts at communication are one-way.

Thus, in the coming weeks and months I will endeavor to reach out to you, that is, those whom I’ve not yet met or those with whom I’ve had perhaps only a passing encounter. My first communication will generally be an email to invite conversation, perhaps by phone or FaceTime or some other creative communication format that we are drawn to and comfortable with.

Since we cannot yet meet in person on the Lord’s Day each week, such outreach seeks to fill the void as I seek to get to know you as ones in my care as your Pastor. I am old enough to remember the phone company advertisements of yore – “long distance is the next best thing to being there.” Well, nowadays, we have more creative communications venues than long distance.

All of this is to say that as a Pastor, I yearn to know you better, that is, you who are in my care, and I aim to include in my busier-than-I-thought-I-might-be routines during the pandemic weekly efforts at reaching out to members I have not yet met or conversed with.

And again, as I have said before, I invite you to not necessarily wait for me to reach out to you. Feel free to email me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or to call my direct dial number at my church office, and if I am not there, to leave a message (703-972-2076). I am eager to be in holy conversation with you.

As ever, I pray for you and for your well-being and that of those whom you love.

With such prayer in Jesus’ name,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

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