Jason Byassee
One of the treasures of Boone is King Street. I love walking downtown, eating well, people-watching, seeing our folks who do business down there, hearing the music–even if hula hoops and drum circles are a bridge too far. Our downtown has a unique vibe and helps make our town a special place.
King Street used to be the hub of Boone’s churches. Now First Baptist remains, while we and First Pres have left, for good reasons. Memories of when our church worshiped downtown are still strong at Boone Methodist. The psychological space from the university is now light years away from the days when students and faculty could walk to church. It was right to move (a unanimous vote confirmed this in 1997), but we lost some things that were precious to us.
What if we worshiped downtown again?
For the past few months, Luke Edwards, our fantastic director of community engagement, has been meeting with interested folks to ask what worship downtown might look like. He is meeting with folks I think of as “Black Cat” folks (Espresso News, Bald Guy, Our Daily Bread–any number of other businesses would work too). Anytime I’m in Vern’s favorite burrito haunt I remember a restaurant slogan from my hometown of Chapel Hill: “A sunny place for shady people.” This is a demographic that is often aggressively anti-institutional, unsure what to do with their lives deeply in school debt, often socio-economically vulnerable, but full of ideals.
You know them. Some of them are your kids, siblings, friends, or baristas.
Wouldn’t you love to see them in church? Wouldn’t you love for our church to benefit from their worldview?
For all their suspicions of church, these folks are not uninterested in matters spiritual. Just look at the stores hawking spiritual wares on King Street. They are also not uninterested in Jesus. Truly, in their deepest selves, they want to be in relationship to him through his church. They just don’t always know that yet.
What would it look like if we offered worship they might like? Or even better, if we asked them to help us build a worship service that would appeal to them and their friends?
Luke, a new leader named Elizabeth Reese, and a handful of others have been meeting with their friends over food, poetry-readings, and worship at the chapel at the Wesley Foundation. They will invite others of us to join them at some point. They feel like God is doing something in their midst–they’re just trying to figure out what, and join in. Our Methodist district and conference have taken notice. The Appalachian District, with the strong support of our DS Lory Beth Huffman, has offered them a $10,000 seed grant. The conference will consider a pitch soon for a much larger grant.
We are tentatively calling the thing King Street Church. Similar efforts in our conference are in Winston-Salem (newstorychurch.org) and Asheville (haywoodstreet.org). Our conference recently reorganized to move money out of administration and into mission–we are the sort of congregation that has a capacity to lead that effort.
Our congregation has a deep history of responsiveness. We founded the Wesley Foundation and our preschool in the 50s. We started our contemporary service and relationship with Patzibal in the 90s. Crossroads and Blackburn Chapel emerged in the 2000s.
This may be our next step in responding to God’s grace. “Get ready to do something,” our value says. For now, pray. Soon, visit and offer input and advice and encouragement. Always, be on the watch for Jesus. He’s on the move.
Are we ready to follow?