Keith Arbuckle takes part in a Bible study session with First Baptist Church pastor Evan Guse at the Lucabe Coffee location in Eastbrook Plaza in Columbus on July 11.
On one side of First Baptist Church’s Bible study group at Columbus’ Eastbrook Plaza Shopping Center, the peaceful sounds of Haw Creek flow briskly. On the other side, jackhammers rattle relentlessly along with construction on National Road.
In the middle of that yin and yang of the great outdoors at Lucabe Coffee Company, 23 people sit at metal patio tables and chairs grouped together, all of them grappling with the mix of the comfort and the cacophony of life.
The 9:30 a.m. Thursday study through August — one open to anyone — represents just one of many such groups meeting beyond the walls of area houses of worship, where wide-eyed faith apparently gets even more wide-eyed amid the frappes and lattes of caffeinated conversation.
In Scripture, Jesus of Nazareth referenced drinking from his water of life. At the local Lucabe’s, one can drink from an entire menu-board of thirst-quenchers. First Baptist Senior Pastor Evan Guse said since he returned to his hometown last year that he wanted the church to be part of the fabric of the city in various ways.
“We have to remember that the Christian church should exist beyond the four walls and well into the community,” Guse said. “That’s important especially since our church building sits up on a hill (on Fairlawn Drive) fairly removed from a lot.
“The second part is that we’ve had a number of significant interactions with people that we otherwise would not have had if we were simply meeting in the church courtyard.”
In fact, in June, a Bible study member unexpectedly bumped into a friend inside Lucabe’s before the Bible study began that morning. The friend ended up dropping in on the study and being open to have them pray for her.
“It was a pretty incredible time,” Guse said.
Surprisingly, among such a larger study group, enough comfortable pauses exist during this particular look at grace via the New Testament Book of Hebrews that almost everyone has a clear shot at participating. Some such as Larry Calfee sit with physical Bibles inked with enough notes to look almost like an edited manuscript. Others such as Keith Arbuckle follow along with readings via a clean-looking cellphone Bible app.
They talk of differences between priests and prophets, and even make room for children’s inquisitiveness on the periphery of the discussion. When Guse reads a line from Hebrews that refers to believers subsisting on milk rather than solid food, the pastor’s daughter Madeline pipes up curiously.
“Do people live on milk?” she asks.
“Good question,” her Dad responds.
Most of the questions on this day flow into earnest exploration.
“Evan’s a really good teacher,” says member Dortha Anderson, a First Baptist member since 1954. “But he’s very careful to never take over.”
She also delicately points out that, though’s not quite a coffee drinker, she loves the fact that Lucabe’s extends such a warm welcome.
Participant Calfee, who has helped facilitate other studies in the past at the church, is more than fine with the setting. But he is careful to mention that the church’s studies have met in places as varied as The Four Seasons Retirement Center dining room to people’s homes through the years.
“To be honest, for me, the setting is not quite as important as being together with others for a common purpose,” Calfee said.
The gathering unfolds somewhat nontraditionally late in the study when the pastor’s wife, Emma Guse, an unassuming preacher’s kid, raises her hand at one point when a portion of Scripture is read referencing “the truth.”
“What exactly constitutes truth in today’s context?” she asks from the end of the table with a directness and openness that the pastor mentions has become her trademark. “How do we determine that?”
The pastor chuckles, but then salutes her straightforward honesty that allows room for doubts.
“Emma has a habit,” he says, “of dropping bombs right at the end.”
Participants, including his inquisitive spouse, get a good laugh.
Her foundational questions spur discussion and exchanges that the pastor never intends to sound like precise right or wrong workbook answers. He, like a lot of area clergy, seems to prefer to embrace complexity in favor of cookie-cutter commentary.
Guse offers a lesson in humility that he says includes Scriptural interpretation.
“Things changed dramatically for me,” he says, “when I learned to carefully say ‘I may be wrong.’”
For more information
First Baptist has another study meeting at Lucabe Coffee Company in the Eastbrook Plaza Shopping Center at 25th Street and National Road at 1 p.m. Tuesdays.
For information on the church’s other studies and activities, visit firstbaptistcolumbus.org.
