A Tale of Two Coffee Times
My daughter Anna shrieked and chased her cousin Elijah round the church hall. It is not every Sunday that he comes to our church, Paterson Memorial in Sarnia, Ont., for a visit, and she was thrilled. My brother Matt, with his coffee mug in hand, nodded at his two-year-old daughter Ainsley, who was perched on a table. Virginia, an elderly friend, had boosted the girl up. Ainsley’s mop of curls bent toward Virginia’s white hair in an earnest tête-à-tête.
“That wouldn’t happen in our church,” Matt said. “There are loads of kids everywhere, and they run around like crazy during coffee hour, but there isn’t space for that kind of thing to happen, a conversation like that.”
My brother’s church is way cooler than ours. Coffee time at Matt’s church is called Connections Café, and it looks like a Starbucks—not a gold-rimmed cup in sight. Don’t get me wrong—Matt’s church is faithful.
The congregation engages with its community, worships the Trinitarian God, makes disciples. When my family visited, friendly volunteers welcomed my daughter to Sunday school and cuddled my son in the nursery. Being cool—and being a large congregation—does not preclude being faithful.
At Matt’s church that Sunday, I caught glimpses of God at work through the stories shared by families presenting children for baptism, and in the witness of a young man presenting himself to be baptized. That day, God added to this church’s number those who are being saved, including my infant niece. The blessings of God’s mission are evident in this green and growing church plant. But Matt’s words taught me to see a particular kingdom blessing that can be found at my home church.
God’s Upside-Down Kingdom
I recently attended an annual conference for ministers and their spouses at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont. Mark Buchanan shared from his book Your Church is Too Safe, telling about his church’s often messy journey into local mission. Central to his message is that God calls us out from the comfortable safety of segregation into a difficult discipleship. God’s kingdom is evident when people who are unlike each other come together.
Buchanan writes that when he began as the pastor of New Life Church, there were few elderly people, and he didn’t really see it as a problem. In time, however, his heart was changed by passages such as this one from the prophet Zechariah: “Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing” (8:4-5). The very old and the very young, safe together, is a glimpse of the heavenly city God is building. It is the way things are meant to be.
Buchanan puts it this way: “Young and old together is more than a symptom of spiritual health, but is at the core of spiritual health: young and old love each other. Young and old seek out each other. Young and old learn from each other. Young and old live in the shelter of each other.” Ainsley and Virginia formed this kind of shelter as their heads tilted together during that coffee hour after church. While relationships formed between peers at Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, and church camps can help build faith, so can relationships between people from different generations.
Reta and Peter
One such relationship was formed between my one-year-old son, Peter and his babysitter, Reta. Though elderly, she undertook the very physical task of caring for Peter, lifting him down from furniture and hoisting him away from electrical outlets. She preserved his life—or at least his limbs.
Peter was new to walking when he met Reta, and she is new to a wheelchair now. My family visited her at the hospital one day. She offered chocolates, which Anna and Peter—who receive grace promptly—cheerfully accepted. We talked about church events and Reta’s health while Peter investigated the wonderful workings of Reta’s hospital bed. When their Dad began to pray, Anna and Peter each held one of Reta’s hands.
The moment was a gift. Reta had been Peter’s caregiver, and he showed care for her by pausing long enough to pray. God’s coming kingdom could be seen and felt in Peter’s chocolate-smeared fingers joining Reta’s hand in prayer to God our Father, to Jesus His Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Praying together, Reta and Peter were sheltered by each other and by their God.
Building the Kingdom
Amid the challenges churches face maintaining brick-and-mortar buildings, there are signs of a heavenly kingdom being built here on earth, here in Sarnia.
“Sarnia?” my brother said, upon first hearing about our family’s move to this city. “There’s not much happening in Sarnia.” But I know, because I have seen it, that God’s kingdom is being built, even here. Among other places, it is present in the nodding together of white hair and cherubic curls during coffee time, and in the entwining of age-softened fingers with small hands in a hospital room.
Namesake
Peter is named after his great-grandpa, Rev. Dr. Peter White, who passed away on March 12 of this year. My family received a small black binder of great-grandpa White’s sermons. One of them cites the 1952 census, which recorded many new babies being born in Canada. Reflecting on all these babies, great-grandpa White invited his listeners: “Open your doors, and bring the children in. Open your hearts, and give the aged your love. Then the young shall see visions of God’s love in their lives, and the old shall dream dreams.” Amen, and amen.
