X Factor A2: A Boy, A Bishop and Ubi Caritas

There is a cafe in my new home town.  It is perhaps the best espresso and certainly the closest to the rectory.  TBTG.  I want to share with you a few observations about the cafe.

• This cafe is contemporary, it has those clean lines and deep neutral tones with bright accents that are so popular with upscale fast casual eateries.  
• The offerings are artisanal and limited...fine pastries and gelatos/sorbets featuring local fruits, espresso and tea (and one wine and one beer).  
• The location is in our notable downtown but off of the intoxicating main street.  Yet I am rarely the only guest.  
• It is not child oriented (no highchairs, no playset); it is perhaps quite 'grown up'.  
• There are almost always children there (well they do serve yummy sugary stuff, and there is a ballet studio above...but those are not the only reasons.) 
• Even though I describe the space as grown up, 
• And sometimes the seats are filled with the more mature,
• And sometimes the seats are mostly emerging adults (college town).
• Most often it is a mix of generations. 
• Children seem perfectly 'at home' and nourished at this grown up and classy cafe.

Maybe you have seen the darling pictures of the young boy onstage with the Bishop of Rome.  Somewhere in that crowd there was probably a parent or a grandparent having a fit...but the boy was quite perfectly at home, and so to it seems, was the venerable Francis.  This moment was brought to you by the letter A: accessibility and attractiveness.

• The boy was able to easily reach the stage (have security folks been told to 'welcome the children'?)
• The boy felt drawn to the stage and the company of this pontiff.  

However, maybe some of you noticed who was not there.

• This was the only child on the stage.  
• The only child who made his way up to the dais at an event for families and young people.  
• How many other children or teens saw the access and felt the call ....
• But were held back by learned propriety, or, well meaning adults?

I have to imagine that people who choose to open a cafe do so out of a desire to feed people.  To share something amazing that meets a need or responds to a desire.  I hope and pray that people continue to be the church do so out of a desire to share Christ and the multitude of ways that life in God's reign can respond to needs and offer nourishment.

Accesibility and attractiveness.  Lets call them X factors A2.  Not Hollywood nonsense attractiveness or ADA accessibility (although that is really important) but instead: are folks drawn to the experience and can folks enter the experience? Across the generations; each as they need to enter, receive and share?  These are crucial factors for church and cafe alike.

A2 isn't just a question about a physical building or a people who are called there.  A2 is also in the digital cloud that surrounds us.  I returned a few weeks ago from a conference on 21st century digital formation networks.  One of the most important inspirations that John Roberto shared was the idea of church evolving:

• from being connected via media (through the hard material of physical destinations and objects),
• to being connected via media via media (connected through digital media through a physical 'server'). 

Long before this digital saturation 'effective' congregations have been doing this...being a physical center that thethers discipleship to the work of feeding, healing and reconcillation throughout the community.  A cafe for the work of the world.

Whether in the hard material of wood and bone, or the immaterial of digital media, churches focused on ministering with the whole people of God have several 'cafe' factors to consider.   Let's call both church and cafe 'C'.

• Can folks of many generations access C: can people find C, enter C and be fed?  
• Is C attractive: is it something that people are drawn to and welcomed into?
• Even if they never stop in again??
• Does C respond to a need or desire or is it performance art?
• Does C have high or low barriers?  
• Does C try to get to much milage from
• Not offending anyone
• Shocking everyone
• 'Keeping up with the Jones''?

Whatever flavor C we are committed to, there is that very unfakeable X factor.  A genuine experience of deliciousness: the kind that makes our natural faults in access and attractiveness less important! There are cafes and experiences that are neither classically attractive nor accessible, but we scale the barriers because there is something so unusual or savory in the experience.  The long line outside the funky donut shop; the midnight journey to Graceland Too.

In my C (church) earnestly loving and welcoming young people and families should be so basic it doesn't need to be said.  It is sadly an X factor; however.... it only takes one to climb the dais!  There is a sort of sacramental quality: a mystery that motivates.  For my C we have an ancient Latin the phrase: ubi caritas.  It is that completely immaterial, but completely tangible flavor of living as Christ's compassion, hope and love.

• What positive access/attractive factors (x factor a2) have you experienced outside of church/synagouge?
• What about immaterial/tangible factors in cafes or elsewhere? 
• Especially the kind of places that are very grown up?
• What about x factor a2  in churches or other community 'server' organizations?