This is the Maxwell's House Website:
B.J. Maxwell (Me): Lots of involvement with coffeehouses. Shortly
after becoming a Christian over twenty years ago, I went with a bro to a Coffeehouse in Ocean View, Virginia. This coffeehouse
was called the Fire Escape. There was something radically different about this coffeehouse. The message and the methods were
as different as night and day from other nightclubs and coffeehouses. The band was playing rock and roll but the words were
about JC. Well, I was accustomed to Christian music being boring and slow. This changed my view of Christian Music
forever. When being honourably discharged from the Navy to go home I got involved in one way or another in Christian Coffehouses.
One such coffeehouse was called Jesus on Main Street which later moved and changed it's name to City Lights. Most of that
time I ran Saturday Nights. We would have bands, talk one on one, every great once in a while groups of people came in, food
for the needy and even preachers coming in to say a word or two. This coffeehouse resembled a mission more than it did the
first Christian Coffeehouse I went to.
Other coffeehouses that I have been to are Noah's Ark and Daniels Den.
Still, the best times we had were at the local White Spot. We would talk for hours
with friends and even a few strangers would overhear our conversations.
Well, my wife and I asked ourselves if there was any reasons we shouldn't have
what we had in the last situation. We couldn't think of any.
Whatever form the house takes that we break bread and sip coffee in takes, we know
that the important thing is the Lord and the people that the Lord sends our way.
I have learned over the years what makes for good Christian Fellowship
around the table. This site is the visual and virtual expression of what will soon be a earthly reality again.
"At most Sunday Morning worship services you are not welcome to raise
your hands, interrupting your pastors erudite preachment , and ask for an explanation on one of the great mysteries of the
faith, such as the Trinity, the origin of evil, or the tension between God's sovereignty and human free will.
As a matter of fact, the opportunity to ask questions rarely presents itself in many
churches and many important questions simply go unaddressed. Elton Trueblood points to the problem this poses:
'There is little chance of renewal if all that we have is the arrangement by which
one speaks and the others listen. One trouble with this conventional system is that the speaker never knows what the unanswered
questions are, or what reservations remain in the layman's mentality.'
We have people of faith and people on the fringe of faith with unanswered questions
haunting their hearts and minds. Is it possible that the church may be guilty of answering questions that no one is asking?
And not answering the real questions many are asking? Could this be why the church has become irrelevant for so many? If the
Church is interested in making the message of the Christian faith compelling, it will have to take the time to listen
and then begin offering better responses than, 'Because that's the way we've always believed,' or worse, 'You shouldn't even
be asking those kind of questions." (Coffeehouse Theology, JIm Thomas pg. 13)
At the local coffeehouse everyone can participate, ask the questions they really have
and say what they really think.
