"Churches say, 'Be our guest'" -- USA TODAY, December 14, 2009

It's not uncommon today to linger after a church service for a cup of coffee, perhaps a doughnut and a little time to chat with fellow worshipers. The days of get-in-and-get-out might just be behind us.

Indeed, churches are rediscovering the power of hospitality, which goes back thousands of years — think of Jesus feeding 5,000 people by the Sea of Galilee.

What happened along the way? Christianity suddenly became a much more intellectual enterprise after the Protestant Reformation, when churches split into different denominations over theological ideas. Preachers and teachers tried to attract followers with compelling insights and ideas. The focus of the faith shifted from the heart to the head, leaving the stomach behind.

Today, congregations are trying to provide more than intellectual nourishment by putting restaurants and coffee bars in their buildings.In our polarized and fractured society, people of different backgrounds are invited to come together in these houses of God to have conversation over a meal or a drink — in spite of their differences.

"Through hospitality, we discover the ways we are both alike and different," says Christine Pohl, author of Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. "When we welcome other people into our lives, we create space in which each person's gifts and insights can be shared."

Hospitality, then civility?

Our country needs such places of hospitality, whether they are located in churches or elsewhere.

In Washington, rancor has only gotten worse, in part because Democrats and Republicans run in different circles in their political and personal lives. It's easier to demonize your opponent if no occasion demands civility. An enormous amount of good could come out of shared meals in the congressional dining rooms, with Democrats and Republicans — gasp! — breaking bread together. (Imagine Rep. Joe "You lie!" Wilson asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass the salt.) Similar progress could emerge from meals in our communities i.e., churches — in which seniors would sit at tables with teenagers, blacks with whites, gays with straights, and immigrants with native-born Americans.

Hospitality can encourage what discussion and debate cannot: reconciliation. As we see across the globe today, theology tends to divide people and too often leads to conflict. Our own nation is still highly segregated on Sunday mornings. But a shared meal can unite people at the level of a basic human need. Over the course of my 23 years of ministry, I've seen the power of a simple international potluck dinner. As James Beard wrote, "Food is our common ground, a universal experience."

Meals also can build relationships across enormous socio-economic divides. My friend Kathleen Kline Chesson is the senior pastor of First Christian Church in Falls Church, Va., a congregation that serves 150 homeless people breakfast and lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. One rainy day, Chesson saw a homeless man — uninvited and dripping wet — shuffle into an elegant reception being held at the church after the funeral of a longtime member. Chesson greeted him, then smiled as three other members of the congregation rushed up to welcome him, making sure that he quickly had a plate of food.

A skate park, Wi-Fi and God

So how are churches evolving today? Many are trying to become the "third place" that Starbucks has staked out in our culture a place for people to go after (1) home and (2) work.

Saddleback Church in California, the megachurch led by Pastor Rick Warren of Purpose Driven Life fame, has a facility called the Refinery that could just as easily be mistaken for a town square — restaurants, snack bars, a skate park, a volleyball court and even a waterfall. Warren recently sent out a mass e-mail with an invitation to fill three things: your soul at worship, a grocery bag for the hungry, and "your tummy," adding that the Refinery offers "free Wi-Fi, too." (Starbucks, watch out!)

Clearly, the buttoned-up churches of yesteryear are giving way to Hospitality, USA:
• The Gathering is a new church in Sevierville, Tenn., designed for social interaction between congregation and community. Its lobby has a mountain-lodge feel, with a coffee bar and a bookstore.
• The Family Christian Center in Munster, Ind., actually has a Starbucks in its lobby.
• Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston hosts a McDonald's in its Lifelong Learning Center.
• The University Vineyard church in Fresno has a youth bistro with coffee and Christian bands.
• A cafe at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, N.J., is a "Robin Hood restaurant" — eat all you want, and pay what you can.

"Human beings are made for relationship," says Arthur Sutherland, professor of theology at Loyola University in Maryland, and author of I Was A Stranger: A Christian Theology of Hospitality. He says all relationships tend toward failure, but not one is irreconcilable. "Every time I reach beyond my near circle of relationships toward one that is farther away," says Sutherland, "I enrich the relationships closest to me."

Clearly, shared meals are not a quick fix for the divisions that we face in church and society. Theological debates will continue, racial-ethnic misunderstandings will still vex us, and not all church-based restaurants and coffee shops will serve a greater good. But every time people sit down to eat and drink together, there is the possibility that community will grow and people will be reconciled to one another. That is the potential of such meals, and certainly something we can all raise a glass to toast.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia and author of Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts.