How a Simple Sojourn and Coffee can Lead to a Missional Mindset…

Continuing on my theme of coffee shop blog posts, I decided to dig deeper into the founding purpose of my favorite coffee shop back at home. Sojourn Cafe, located in Brewster, Ohio, was founded with the goal to “provide a temporary stay from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life.” The building was originally founded as a different cafe that had a strong connection to the local churches. When rebranded to Sojourn Cafe, the location kept ahold of their connections with the church. My home church has a number of connections to them, whether that be them providing free coffee for events or being a sponsor of the missions my church has going on.

This cafe is another example of a cafe that is not founded exclusively under a scripture verse or a Biblical mission, but a lot of the values they hold are the same. Some of the key words that their website repeats are “rest” and “peace”. These are key values of Biblical ideas that most redemptive businesses repeat throughout their mission statements.

Through looking at local coffee shops, it has been cool to note how some of them are explicitly redemptive. It is also neat to see how some of them are more redemptive in their values, whether intentional or not. No matter a Christian business or not, the idea of a coffee shop and it being a place for people to come together to connect is something that is Biblical at heart.