About Urban Abbey

History

The History of Omaha's Coffee Shop–Bookstore–United Methodist Church

Urban Abbey opened our doors in the fall of 2011, but the story of this progressive congregation starts long before. The Reverend Debra McKnight was studying faith communities when a seminary professor invited her to research a Lutheran Church/Pub in Seattle.  

In that congregation, pastors were bartenders and the line between church and everyday life was not so cut-and-dry. They were doing something that Rev. McKnight thought of vital importance. Many people leave the church wounded by spiritual violence and many people leave the church disappointed in the hierarchy that struggles to embody Christ’s message. There is a need for a spiritual community that makes space for these wounds and disappointments. 

Beyond hurt or disappointment, there is a bigger trend of irrelevance. We live in a world where being a part of the church is simply not relevant; no strong feelings against and no strong feelings for it. For many, it is simply not even a consideration or a part of one's journey.

Wesley Pub

We are Methodist, which traditionally makes us teetotalers and gives us an institutional history tied to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In the modern era plenty of church members enjoy alcohol, but starting a pub with a bartending pastor was a big stretch for a church rooted in those traditions of temperance. However…it's in that nice, gray area where life is really interesting. In 2008, Rev. McKnight founded a gathering for young adults called Wesley Pub. 

First United Methodist Church and Soul Desires Bookstore, collaborated with Rev. McKnight to create a monthly worship service where everyone of age was invited to bring their favorite beer or wine. Each service contained prayer and music, a clip from the "Colbert Report," some poetry, a "mad-lib" prayer, a micro-sermon and para-communion (which allowed everyone to take bread, eat grapes and sing “Let it Be” together….no worries about table manners). Each gathering had two small group sessions and Rev. McKnight assigned people to groups with playing cards because she thought, “why not get in trouble for gambling too?” We had conversations with a Rabbi about sex and discussed workers rights with a Roman Catholic Priest. 

Before long, these gatherings happened twice monthly and were successful enough that Rev. McKnight was eventually invited to visit with the Bishop about Wesley Pub. 

Rev. McKnight said, "Since I had not asked her permission, it was easy to ask for forgiveness.  Plus I had proof that these gatherings were not really about the ‘Pub’ but about breaking down the walls that kept people from church. I frequently co-led with a Rabbi and a Priest, which sounds like the beginning of a joke, but we were not always joking. Though humor was important, we dove into hard topics with people from across the political and theological spectrum."

A New Kind of Church in a Coffee Shop

In 2010, Rev. McKnight was invited to share a few words about this adventure. It was a key step in the growth of Urban Abbey. The Nebraska Annual Conference decided it was ready to try something new, which is remarkable. Most new churches start in a suburban gym-a-cafa-torium with a cute white guy who plays guitar and has either a piercing or a tattoo, (but not both…that would be too much). If the conference wanted to start that kind of church, Rev. McKnight knew she was not the right person. On the other hand, if they wanted to start something outside the norm, she was all in.  

She asked the conference to create an everyday place, a coffee shop, bookstore and church where Pastoristas (a term coined by Rev. Chris Jorgensen) could listen to your story and make you a latte.  Roasters, accountants, architects, real estate developers and HR folks filled the Urban Abbey dream team. Which was critical because the classes in seminary about running a small business, getting permits for a historic building or food storage laws were, well, not a thing.  

In November of 2011 the Abbey opened as a living sanctuary, designed by a friendly agnostic and lovingly crafted by volunteer plumbers, electricians, carpenters and painters. This sanctuary is a gift of care and it was created to be open all the time, to anyone, no matter what they need. 

The space is totally flexible and we can move anything anywhere to make it work. People often ask, "Where do you have church?" The response is, “Right here!” The line between secular and sacred are blurred and messy. Just like learning these new skills of being an entrepreneur/pastor.

Hospitality, Generosity and Connection

The founding team brought three main values into their work. 

Hospitality = Coffee 
The goal is to welcome and include guests whether they want a latte and a break from their day, a quiet place to chat with a friend or an opportunity to break bread in worship. 

Generosity = Cause
Churches talk about giving and sometimes it puts people off, but giving is an act that pushes us beyond the norms of the world around us.  

"Giving has transformed my spiritual life, perhaps because it is so hard," said Rev. McKnight.  "Our team felt the same and so we built giving into our practice as a community.  We give 10% of our coffee bar sales to a non-profit partner each month.  And it can be hard to write that check.  I can think of a billion things we could do with each check but it is also the part of our ministry that makes the most vital and tangible impact in our relationships with the community." 

The Abbey has community partners each month that direct church programing, share in the journey and do vital work changing our community.  That risky choice to donate 10% of sales was made before the first sale was entered into the ledgers. Now, it means that the Abbey has given more than 100,000 dollars to local non-profits since we opened.  

The commitment to local ministry goes beyond the food drives and toy collections, it is a deep investment in partners.  Urban Abbey partners with schools, direct service nonprofits such as Stephen Center and advocacy non-profits like Nebraska Appleseed and Omaha Together One Community. The Abbey partners with nonprofits that care for vulnerable neighbors, such as Immigrant Legal Center and Nebraska AIDS Project.  Sometimes the work is risky. Occasionally, a customer will return their coffee because they don’t want to support PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Conservative religious groups have protested outside Abbey services and events because they objected to the congregation's support of LBGTQ + members and friends.

Connection = Community
The Abbey team wants to connect people to God and to one another.  

Rev. McKnight says, "At its best, I believe, the church can be a hub of radical connection and the deeper our connections, the more power we have for transformation. When we see one another as sacred, we can not but help to treat one another with greater care and compassion, when we see one another and listen to one another we grow."

A Church of Our Own

In 2015 Urban Abbey made another big jump and branched out from its mother-church, First United Methodist Church of Omaha, and moved toward the work of becoming an independent congregation. It was a time of new learning, new struggles, and new growth.  

In that leap the Abbey became a hub for campus ministry. Much like a new church start, campus ministry has a pretty low success rate and is likely to fail. But the Urban Abbey team believes in this ministry of connection that doesn’t force belief or legislate behavior. The goal was to hold a vital space in the campus ministry landscape, one that is open to all, invites questions and doubts, believes faith involves the head, the heart and the hands, and values all people without an “if” next to that welcome.

The big leap of 2015 was born of a 2014 financial prediction that we would close if we kept going the way we always had.  

"That year we launched out on our own and started a campus ministry that taught me more about prayer and the gift of uncertainty. My only hope was to grow enough that I could beg our Bishop for a new grant when we ran out of money. But that was an ask I never had to make," said Rev. McKnight. "The giving in our congregation doubled. It was clear that if this place was a place folks wanted to exist then they had to invest in it. Urban Abbey has been the greatest adventure, with unpredictable stops and starts, big failings and real moments of meaning along the way. This uncertainty has fueled my deepest spiritual growth and for it I am ever grateful. It saved me from becoming a really good religious leader." 

Since 2015 the Abbey has grown from one service at 5:30 pm to three services. When the church started its first morning service, no one imagined wanting to go in the morning. After 16 months the 10:00 am service was split into two morning services, at 9:00 am and 11:00 am. 

In true Abbey fashion, the morning it was announced that a new service time would be added, the church has its lowest attendance in a year. Rev. McKnight tried to find a way out of announcing and moving forward with the additional service, but the wheels were already in motion and it was time to make space to include more folks. In those first few months leaders committed to attending both morning services as much as they could. Their presence made all the difference; welcoming people depends on folks being there to receive, connect, listen and anticipate their needs and get out more chairs.

Where Urban Abbey is Now: Enormous Smallness

by Reverend Debra McKnight

A sweet book of poetry in the children’s section caught my eye a summer or two ago. The book is titled Enormous Smallness: A story of E.E. Cummings by Matthew Burgess and has an elephant riding a cloud on the cover. That phrase enormous smallness captures the heart of the Abbey and our vision for the future. We are on a new journey and growth is at the heart of our very being. Growth means we are living and it is at the heart of our very faith identity as Jesus invited disciples and they invited more.  

We exist as a Christian community because two thousand years ago people had this enormous vision, they reached out to people and they didn’t even have Facebook. They grew. Growth means an organism is alive.  

We are called into this enormous life and vision and dream of God’s love. And the tools we get to take with us are small; a cup, a loaf of bread, maybe an apron, water and a towel. We approach this enormous task of transforming the world and we don’t do it with big things, like tanks or buckets of money, rather we approach with smallness that holds a unique power. We bring a cup and bread into conflict and hurt. We bring a prayer into lonely spaces. We bring ourselves, with our small agendas and big dreams and we face this enormous call together. And that is a holy act, where God blesses our enormous smallness and transforms us along with our seemingly small tools of cup and bread into a moment that makes a world of difference.  

People don’t think small is all that powerful…most of the time. No one hopes for a small firefighter to come when they are in trouble and movies don’t show small Navy Seals leaping from the plane. Of course there are exceptions like Mighty Mouse, but for the most part small does not seem to be what we want to be or bring into the world. But God is always choosing small in our sacred stories…David faces Goliath and a tiny baby born in poverty is the seed of our faith in God’s power. Jesus blesses a boy’s small offering of loaves and fishes in the face of an enormous crowd and there is so much that ancient Mediterranean doggy bags could be sent home with the 5,000.  

As we grow we have the chance to make more of an impact, we have the chance to reach more people and make a bigger difference. And we have a chance to stay intimate, to keep the sacred smallness and relationships of our space. More services in a coffee shop may not follow the traditional path of moving to a bigger space for a bigger service. But for now it offers us the chance to explore the power of small space relationally with our enormous God-sized calling. We can be vast and intimate at the same time. I don’t see a gym-a-cafe-torium that seats 600 people in rows in our future.

This growth depends on each of us. It depends on invitations and welcome. In the beginning of John, Simon Peter brings Andrew to meet Jesus. This small act changes Andrew’s life. This is how they grew. Simon Peter brings Andrew and he brings one person and they bring another person and they keep bringing people together. They keep sharing, inviting and caring for their community. This is how we, the Christian faith, became enormous with beautifully simple small steps like inviting people to the table and breaking bread.  

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