Soup-kitchen church
The guests streamed into the soup kitchen of West End Collegiate Church, shaking off the bitter cold from New York City’s winter. Many of them lived outside, so they were used to being rejected from public spaces like museums or churches. But the members of West End follow the Benedictine credo: “Welcome everyone as if you are welcoming Christ.” So the weary men and women knew they could rest here. They shrugged off their backpacks and coats, and settled into their seats in anticipation of the Bible study held before the meal. It was Advent, so associate pastor Jes Kast-Keat lit the first two purple candles of the wreath. The smell of smoke rose and mingled with the food, and a guest called out, “Let’s go to church today, pastor!”
Kast-Keat brightened. The guest had articulated a hope that had been forming within her. She’d been hearing other people echo her thought around tables, in their greetings, and as they said goodbye: “This is my church.” Those declarations felt right, as if they were creating something by naming it. They could sense the sacred space in the soup kitchen. They had been gathering for worship.
Actually, this community had been coming together for hundreds of years. Historians believe that Comforters of the Sick, or Ziekentroosters, first conducted religious services for the small colony of New Netherland on Manhattan Island. In 1628 an ordained minister arrived and began the Reformed Dutch Church in America. West End Collegiate is part of the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, and the oldest Protestant church with a continuing organization in America. There are four other Collegiate Churches of New York City: Marble, Middle, Fort Washington, and Intersections. West End, which was established as a center for the Dutch refugee and relief efforts, is now in an affluent neighborhood a couple blocks away from Central Park.
