By Monte
Recently, I went to the Browne’s Addition neighborhood, which is just west of 
downtown Spokane. The neighborhood is an interesting mix of differing incomes. Browne’s Addition is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Spokane, and thus it includes some of the oldest homes: extensive mansions with ornate siding and framing and large porches. Two to three-story apartment buildings are scattered throughout the neighborhood, providing low-income housing for young adults or the folks that are just barely getting by. The wealth-gap found in just this small neighborhood is unlike many places in the state. Yet the people here are somehow given commonality in that they share the sidewalks, the streets, the one main park, and their favorable proximity to downtown and views of the Spokane River.
Emmanuel Lutheran Church remains the one church within the Browne’s Addition neighborhood. After talking with the secretary of the church, I found out that a lot of the congregation does not live in the neighborhood, consists of only 5 families with kids, and the remaining members are older than their fifties. They have dinners once a week for those in the homeless community, allow outside groups to use the church facilities, and even have recently started a community garden.
I thought about the impact this church has in Browne’s Addition. I was tempted to think that, because the church’s members are not living in the neighborhood, it certainly cannot have any significant impact. But this is only a result of what I imagine the missional church in Browne’s Addition to look like. I imagine a gathered people from all the differing socio-economic groups in the neighborhood, coming through the doors of the church and worshiping together. I imagine everyone in the community sharing a meal together or even just saying “hello” to a familiar face as they pass on the street. Then, I began to wonder what the Kingdom of God in that neighborhood might look like to the couple in their mid-sixties that attends Emmanuel Lutheran Church. Perhaps they see the Kingdom at work as they place their check in the offering on Sunday morning. I have to thank God for them as well. In the same way that the wealth-gap exists in the Browne’s Addition neighborhood, so there must also be a gap in how the older generation and I think of mission, how we think of Kingdom work, and how we think of service inside and outside of the church. And this gap is something to be celebrated. After all, that older couple is really the committed activist while I’m just a dreamer, a hopeful college senior imagining a better neighborhood.
