Ebenezer's Coffeehouse

On Saturday night we visited Ebenezer's Coffeehouse at the corner of 2nd and F Streets on Capitol Hill -- a ministry of National Community Church. What an amazing ministry! The vision of Ebenezer's is "to be a place where the church and community can cross paths" -- and they are certainly fulfilling that vision.

When you walk into Ebenezer's, it's like walking into Starbucks: young adults sitting at tables, milling in and out (and on this warm fall day, spilling out to the tables on the brick sidewalks, too)... people reading and hanging out, using their laptops, taking advantage of the free wireless... the wonderful smell of coffee and cappucino... They use all fair trade coffee -- "coffee with a cause," they call it -- and you can buy it in a cup or in a bag, ready to enjoy at home. There's the usual assortment of bagels, muffins, scones, and cookies, too. And all the proceeds benefit NCC's community outreach ministries. So how has Ebenezer's been received by the D.C. community? Well, it was voted the #2 coffeehouse in the D.C. metro area last year. It also won a Vision Award from the city, "for its demonstration of the potential for imagination and creative energy to give new life and purpose to a forlorn building by envisioning a community benefit where others saw blight." Not bad, huh?

We checked out the coffee house, then headed downstairs for "Connection" -- their Saturday night worship celebration. Actually, it's so popular, they have two: 5:00 and 6:30 pm. We were there for 5:00, and there must have been 150 or more crowded into a fairly small space. The music was excellent, and Mark Batterson's preaching, as always, was uplifting and inspiring and challenging. NCC is getting ready to launch its fourth site, at a movie theater in Georgetown, so Mark spent time reviewing the importance of making disciples, which drives everything they do at NCC. At the conclusion of the service we celebrated Communion. All in all, it was a really powerful worship experience.

And before we left, of course, we had to grab a mocha for the ride home.

For us, this was a great follow-up to our visit to The Potter's House on Friday afternoon. The two are similar in their basic philosophy: ministry in the marketplace. That's the hallmark of NCC: worship in movie theaters, where people naturally gather, and now in the coffeehouse, too. It was the vision of George & Mary Cosby, too, way back in 1947 when they imagined The Potter's House.

They're different in other ways: The Potter's House congregation is intentionally small, with a membership covenant that demands much of its members; National Community Church, in three sites, had a combined average weekly worship attendance of 1,100 last year. Small groups are the lifeblood of this congregation, though: they have almost 150 small group leaders and every kind of group you can imagine. 72% of NCCers are singe 20-somethings. The Potters House places a stronger emphasis on ministries of mercy and justice, but far less focus on being culturally relevant.

There's a lot to process as we reflect upon these juxtaposing visits. It sure seems like God is working through these experiences. We are praying for God's vision to emerge...