Fellowship Hall Lights

The fellowship hall lights are off now, after twelve hours of being on. They first turned on early this morning when staff showed up to begin another Thursday at Pine Street Church and the Oregon Hill Center. Thursdays can be busy days. It begins with breakfast—breakfast for our unhoused friends who come regularly every Thursday, sometimes close to a hundred people, for a meal, for fellowship, for social connection, and simply to be with one another. The breakfast is brought in by neighboring churches. Volunteers arrive carrying food and serve it with smiles and friendly conversation. Many of them have volunteered before, so they already know some of the people who come through our doors. There is always something good about watching people recognize one another and being genuinely happy to see each other again. Folks gather around the tables and enjoy breakfast together.

Mail is distributed. We collect mail for a couple hundred people, and Thursday morning is a busy time for people checking to see what has arrived. Others go to their lockers to check their belongings or drop things off. The clothes closets aren’t open today. They’re only open every other week, but even on an “off” week there is work happening behind the scenes as volunteers restock them with new clothing to be distributed in the weeks ahead. People pick up hygiene kits. They take snack bags with them for later. It is a lively morning. People meet with Jennifer to talk about issues in their lives, problems they are facing, things that need to be straightened out. When you are unhoused, even seemingly simple things can become complicated, and sometimes you need someone willing to sit down, listen, make a phone call, answer a question, or help figure out what comes next.

For a few hours on Thursday mornings, the fellowship hall is filled with people, conversations, food, movement, laughter, questions, and needs. And then things begin to settle down. People begin to leave. The fellowship hall has to be cleaned once again. Marie, our custodian, gets busy cleaning up and straightening everything. Volunteers chip in, but Marie does most of it. Tables are wiped down. Chairs are straightened. Trash is gathered. Floors are cleaned. Before long, everything is straight and clean once again.

But the fellowship hall lights aren’t finished for the day. They need to come on again. It is Thursday night, and that means Community Craft Night. Around six o’clock, people begin showing up again. Some of our unhoused neighbors return because they want to sit around the tables and work on a craft. It is also an ice cream social night, which makes things even better. Families from the neighborhood arrive with their children. Adults show up and, this time, some decide to play games around the tables rather than work on crafts. Others sit and talk while their hands are busy making something. Some don’t really want to do a craft at all. They simply pick up crayons and color one of the coloring pages we’ve put out while they talk with the people around them.

For the first forty-five minutes or so, I sat on the floor with a three-year-old boy playing with a toy castle and a collection of animals. For a little while, the two of us were somewhere in a faraway land, deciding which animals belonged in the castle and creating stories together. Sacred space can look like that. The ice cream is good on a night of fellowship like this. Bowls get filled. Whipped cream gets added. People sit around tables eating together and talking.

Tonight, there is also a new visitor. A young woman working on her master’s degree in engineering at VCU happened to see the sign on the door announcing Craft Night. She had never been here before, but she decided to walk in. She sat down at a table with a couple of our unhoused neighbors, Jennifer, and me. She spent the rest of the evening coloring and talking, learning new faces and hearing about the church, the center, and the Oregon Hill community. There were a lot of laughs shared around that table. I think it was a good night for her.

Meanwhile, there was a Baptist student cookout scheduled in Pleasants Park that we had helped arrange for their leader. But outside it began thundering and raining, so the students and their leaders came inside and joined us. They gathered at one of the tables in the background of Craft Night. And suddenly the same fellowship hall that had been moving and active since early that morning was full again. Different people. Different reasons for being there. Different conversations. Different stories. But all sharing the same space.

It was community. We call it a fellowship hall, and that is certainly what it is. But today it felt like something more. For the entire day, that room had been sacred space. Holy space. Not because there was a formal worship service going on. Not because someone stood behind a pulpit. Not because we sang hymns or passed an offering plate. It was sacred because lives connected there. The Spirit of God was moving throughout the day—in conversations, in meals, in laughter, in people listening to one another’s stories, in a child playing with a toy castle on the floor, in coloring pages, in games around a table, and in bowls of ice cream topped with whipped cream.

It was there when someone received breakfast. It was there when someone found an important piece of mail. It was there when someone checked a locker containing some of the few belongings they have. It was there when someone sat down with Jennifer because life had become complicated and they needed help sorting things out. It was there when volunteers cleaned tables so the next group of people could come in. It was there when a young woman who had never stepped inside our building before saw a sign on the door and decided that perhaps she would come in. And she was welcomed.

Now the fellowship hall lights are off again. The tables have been cleaned. The chairs are back where they belong. The room is quiet. But it won’t stay quiet forever. The lights will come on again. The doors will open again. People will gather again. Someone will eat there. Someone will laugh there. Someone will tell a story there. Someone will need help there. Someone may walk through the doors for the very first time.

And once again, an ordinary fellowship hall will become sacred space. Because maybe that is what sacred places really are. They are places where people gather, places where souls find one another, places where strangers become neighbors, places where people who are looking for connection discover a table and an empty chair waiting for them. Tonight, the fellowship hall lights are off. And I am grateful—grateful that tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever they are needed again, someone will turn them back on, and grateful that our church has become that kind of place.