Open House: the gist

Every Wednesday morning we have an Open House. Basically we open our doors, provide minimal refreshments- coffee, Kool-Aid/Lemonade, cookies- and just hang out. One of our members, Barry, started doing this a while back so that the church is open at least once a week, since the previous pastor worked mostly from his home office. These gatherings are always interesting and I never know what to expect.

In addition to the basic refreshments if someone asks for something more to eat we have some Chef Boyardee microwavable meals we give out. We don't promote that aspect because we have limited resources. But today the Chef was in high demand I probably handed out 15 tubs of Beef-a-roni and spaghetti and meatballs. I didn't get a chance to talk with as many of the people as I would have liked because I was too busy in the kitchen shuttling food to-and-fro. We usually try to close up refreshments around 11:30 so that there is not the expectation of lunch and today was a prime example of that because it was a bit later before we started closing up shop, and the demand was much greater... word spread quickly.

Unfortunately the whole time I was handing out food, in the back of my mind I was struggling. Part of me was more than happy to provide what little food I could to anyone who asked. While at the same time another part of me was thinking... oh crap... now we're creating a cafeteria reputation, and we do not have the resources to sustain this.

Around noon we close up shop and I return to my office to get a little bit of work done. And we leave the building open so people can have a space to get out of the sun and relax. One of the women had a tiny portable DVD player and was playing a movie, at one point I came out and there were probably 5 or 6 people sleeping, and I wondered how it must be for them to have a safe, indoor, relatively undisturbed place to sleep. What a small blessing that our facility could provide for them today. Maybe one of them will accept Barry's invitation to attend worship on Sunday morning, most likely they won't... but I'm thankful that they had a place to come and rest, if only for a little while.