The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

FaithXperimental Spotlight: The Way Station, Spencer, Iowa

In our travels around the U.S., both digitally and physically, we at FaithX like to keep our eyes open for examples of people, programs, communities, or ministries doing creative, innovative, and experimental things in the area of faith. And when we do find one, we like to shine a light on them in a FaithXperimental spotlight blog post.        

Today’s Spotlight article is about The Way Station, based out of Spencer, Iowa. We first learned of The Way Station at the 2019 Genesis Conference in Birmingham, Alabama (part of the Episcopal Church’s New Episcopal Communities initiative), where several dozen new or planned Episcopal Church faith communities and ministries discussed their approaches to engaging their communities. The following description comes from an interview with Rev. Beth Preston, Priest in Charge of The Way Station.

A busy day at The Way Station might find Rev. Preston chatting with a couple of women who have come in for coffee and conversation, dishing up homemade chili to hungry youth after school, supervising candle-making in the Restoration Artworks studio, and checking on the youth who are playing Statues in the Garden in Friar Tuck’s Book Nook. The Way Station is an outreach of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa and is, in the words of Bishop Alan Scarfe, “The church of the 21st Century.” Rev. Beth believes God planted this vision through the inspiration of a class at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, Church and Contemporary Society. “We studied our current culture and what people like to gather around. We all talked about how we wanted to start a coffee shop,” Rev. Preston said. Another inspiration was Spirit Wind Center for Creativity and Healing in Stonington, CT, which Rev. Beth found out about through Sharing Magazine (OSL) and visited with her husband, Glenn. 

The Way Station opened in September of 2018. It operates out of a storefront in downtown Spencer, Iowa. There is a café, where guests are served coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cold beverages and snacks. A chapel is in the heart of the building and hosts a 3:00 pm Holy Eucharist on Sundays. Then there is Rev. Beth’s office, the art room, and the book room. The ministry operates on donations, grants, and offerings, and asks only free will donations of their guests. 

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FaithX Goes To Birmingham, Alabama

Next week, FaithX folk will be going to the Genesis conference on New Episcopal Communities. Aspiring church planters from dioceses around the country will be gathering, along with many of their bishops, for three days of information sharing, training, and coaching.

Ken Howard, our executive director and principal consultant, and Steve Matthews, one of FaithX’s two senior associate consultants, will be delivering plenary presentations and offering micro-coaching sessions with interested participants. Steve’s presentation is entitled, “Falling in Love with your Neighborhood” and Ken’s is entitled, “Grounding Discernment in Data: Missional Planning with MapDash for Faith Communities.”

Other topics at the conference will include: Convening and Nurturing Your Core Team, Hosting Transformative Conversations/Networking, What To Do When Things Don’t Go As Planned, Defining and Achieving Sustainability, and more.

FaithX will be offering a new consultative program, Strategic Missional Planning for Genesis Congregations, which has been customized to the needs of those church planters who will be applying for New Episcopal Communities Grants.

For more information on the New Episcopal Communities initiative, click here.

The FaithX Project, Inc. is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a religious and charitable purpose operated as a ministry by the Rev. Ken Howard under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Bishop of Washington.