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Yesterday at Panera's I noticed a banner that should hang in every church: Refresh
Restart
Renew

Coffee shop book groups

On Monday morning I meet with four other women from my church at Panera's. I regularly visit two different Panera's and they are popular spots for Bible study and book groups. There's a group of men from St. Tim's that meets at the same time my group does. Today I asked if I could take their photo for my blog.



We're taking a brief pause from reading "A faith and culture devotional; daily readings in art, science and life" by Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington (Zondervan, 2009) to use "Messiah" by John Gugel (Creative Communications for the Parish, 2003) during Advent.

Happy Christian at Panera's

Today I met a happy Christian at Panera's. And a happy library user! She was arranging and sorting all the Christmas shopping inserts from the paper on the hearth of the fireplace--there were dozens, left there by people who pulled them out of the Columbus Dispatch. "Do you work in a library?" I asked. "Oh, no, but that's my dream when the kids are all gone." "Really?" I said, always shocked when people tell me clerking in a library is their hope for the future. "Oh yes, it's just so quiet and peaceful." Then she told me she uses Columbus Metropolitan Library, and that when her children were small they would get on the COTA bus and visit all the branches as well as the main library down town. Her children thought this was a terrific adventure. She just loves Columbus Metropolitan!

Then she told me she was looking through the inserts for Christmas deals--later today she was taking 12 middle-school students shopping. "For their families?" I said in shock at the thought of going anywhere with that many kids. "No, our youth group adopts a needy family and then shops for them, but I go along." "Do they raise the money?" "Yes, last week we had a bake sale and they raised $900," she bubbled.

She had just the personality to be a youth leader--an experienced Mom, happy, and frugal.

I told her I'd selected the name of a 1 1/2 year old girl from the Angel Tree, for children of incarcerated parents, but that I wasn't sure anymore what was in the stores for that age group. So she gave me some practical advice.

You meet the nicest people in coffee shops.