Troutdale, Oregon, sits between the winery town of Hood River and the unofficial beer capital of the country, Portland, Oregon. It is here we are building a new church.
Our new building has been in construction for more than 5 years. With only a couple dozen people investing time and money over the years, it's been a slow slog. But this year we hope (at last!) to move out of our small rental space and open the doors to our new building. We've always been about community outreach. It is the reason we built the new 48,000 square foot building. Through all the financial hardships, frustrations, building permits—and constant organizing of volunteer work teams to pour concrete, install roofs, hang doors, and paint walls—the motivation has remained the same: to use this building to reach our unchurched town nestled in the most unchurched state.
One of the most anticipated rooms in the new building is the "café." This room was designed to be an intimate space where groups can meet on any given weeknight to sip some coffee, discuss apologetics, listen to performances, sing worship songs, and hold Bible studies. I know it's silly but I dream about the café becoming something akin to Lewis' and Tolkien's famous Rabbit Room—the room located in the back of The Eagle and Child pub, where Lewis and friends drank ales, smoked pipes, and worked out theologies. Pipe smoking indoors is no longer an option in public buildings, but the question about whether to drink alcohol is one our church must now address.
Beer country
People here don't have a favorite beer; they have favorite breweries, or even favorite sections of the city for drinking beer. Portland is constantly being named and renamed America's Number One Beer City. In Portland, breweries seem to outnumber gas stations. In 2014 Oregon produced 585,000 barrels of beer. Our state leads the U.S. in the percentage of dollars spent on craft beer.
Micro-brewing and large-scale brewing are ubiquitous. It's in the culture, part of our shared identity. From the super hoppy IPAs to the unfiltered wheat beers and the popular chocolate stouts, beer is to Portland what wings are to Buffalo, or BBQ is to everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line.
It always amazes me how drastically the weather changes when you travel just east of Portland. The infamous rains dry up once you cross the Cascade Mountains. Just 30 miles east of Portland the land becomes dry and sunny, a perfect climate for grapes. Hood River and Southeast Washington are full of vineyards. To our southwest lies a large region famous for wines, the Willamette Valley. Oregon wine grapes are now our most valuable fruit crop, valued at $128 million. Our state bottles about 3 million cases of wine annually, shipping 64 percent of it out of state.
In this context, perhaps it's no surprise that, in our small congregation, we have people with wine memberships and people who work at wineries. Some members brew their own beer. We also have members who do not drink and consider abstaining a good way for Christians to set ourselves apart from the culture; to live differently for the sake of Christ. After all, they reason, Jesus called us to be counter-cultural. As the new building gets ready to open, our church leadership has stated that we will allow alcohol to be served in the fellowship hall. Without this concession, no one would book the facility for weddings—and we need weddings to help pay the bills. But those of us in leadership have not yet tackled the larger question: will we allow alcohol in other parts of the church...
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