Why a Mobile Ministry Office is a Must

Okay, so it may not be a must for every pastor, but it certainly has some significant advantages over the traditional church-based office. Let me give you some background: I have an office at our church buliding. I try and get work done there, but it is stuffy and distracting. However, those are things easy to deal with. I decided, though, to spend the majority of my mornings at a coffee shop nearby, using my Mac as my primary computer, checking my email, and doing other various menial tasks throughout the morning. In the process, I frequently run into members of our congregation (probably 3-4 a day), and have developed a relationship with some of the coffee shop workers.

Because of my mobile office, I have developed a friendship with a 73 year old man from our church. He is an active 73 year old, a great personality, and committed to following Christ today (meaning he respects and values where he has come from but is excited about where he is going). He and I spent the last hour chatting about prayer as lived theology, what it means to be the church in a post-Christian world, and how a new building will not magically bring people into our fellowship, but must be used to send our people into the world. His friendship over the last month, and specifically the last two weeks, has been a source of immeasureable encouragement. I am convinced that if I spend all my time at the office during the day, where I'm *supposed* to work, I would have missed out on this friendship, and thus missed out on the work of the Spirit using him to encourage me in my calling.

I am in the middle of some fairly significant revisioning and reculturing in our youth ministry, and I believe that God is orchestrating this relationship as a pivotal source of encouragement and even vision. I ask you, especially those friends in ministry, if we are the church for the world why do we spend so much time in our offices removed from said world? I understand some people cannot work in a coffee shop environment, and so need a quiet office setting. But, for those of us who can, why do we not spend more time out here?