Views from The Ridge 06.12.2024
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
This Week
9am Worship in the Sanctuary (Looking at the Heart - 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13)
10:15am Formation time for all ages
Adult class series: Practicing The Way
Teen formation: The Chosen
Children’s formation: Godly Play
11am Worship in the Chapel (Mark 4:26-34 - listen to this month’s worship inspiration on Spotify)
To view recorded sermons from Sunset Ridge Church, please make sure to add us to your subscriptions on YouTube.
Upcoming
Tuesday, June 18, 9:30am Storytime on the lawn
Wednesday, June 19 Office closed
Wednesday, June 26, 11am Open Court for Teens
Monday, June 24-Thursday, June 27 Sunset Camp: rising kindergarten through 6th grade Sign up today!
Interested in what’s scheduled for our campus at large? Please consider subscribing to Goodness Weekly.
Around Our Community
This summer is filled with lots of life and activities around our building. From Creator Camp to Sprouts School Camp to Storytime and Open Court each week, we are loving all the new young faces that are spending the summer with us.
Stop by sometime and see our new Teen Room upstairs in Room 203! Our interns, Whitney and Lily, have been busy making it a fun place for teens to spend time and grow together in community. We’re grateful for their hard work already this summer.
Little Coffee Trailer, Big Magic
Taylor Bates, Deputy Director, Sunset Ridge Collective
A version of this message appeared in the Goodness Weekly newsletter
This past weekend One Another Coffee celebrated its first birthday, and I thought it would be a nice opportunity to do some storytelling about our favorite coffee trailer. It’s a story about trust, community, and a little bit of magic.
Back in 2020 Sunset Ridge Church of Christ underwent a year-long visioning process to reimagine what it means for the church to be a good neighbor. The Vision Team identified two ways to create new spaces for community to gather: converting our formerly underutilized one-acre parking lot into a neighborhood park (which became Charis Park) and having a coffee shop on campus. In 2021 the Sunset Ridge Collective was formed to activate our campus for the flourishing of one another and our neighborhood. Our small team had no idea how to start and run a coffee shop, but we trusted God’s timing.
About a year later our executive director, Jess, received an email out of the blue from a woman named Katie Best-Richmond asking if we might be interested in letting her start a coffee trailer business in our parking lot. Jess immediately responded, they met over coffee (of course), and before long Rose Hip Coffee launched on our campus. Over that next year, Katie created just the space we had imagined but lacked the experience to make ourselves—one that served as a place for people to gather regularly and encounter their neighbors, ultimately creating new community connections, which we all so desperately needed in a post-pandemic world.
Rose Hip became so successful in its first year that Katie was presented with an opportunity to open a brick-and-mortar shop, which she did in Fall 2022. Recognizing that she would no longer have the capacity to maintain her trailer in addition to the new shop, she offered to sell the trailer to us. Our relationship with Rose Hip had affirmed our Vision Team’s belief that a coffee trailer could have a powerful impact on community building, but we were still hesitant to commit to running it ourselves until Alexis Novotny, who had been working for Rose Hip as a barista and had many years of relevant experience, offered to help us launch the the new coffee brand and program. I honestly don’t think we would have been confident enough to take on this feat had it not been for Alexis stepping forward to share her gifts.
We remodeled the trailer, launched a new menu, hired new baristas, and created a new brand, One Another Coffee, all with the intention of creating community, cultivating creativity, and promoting environmental stewardship. We prioritize sourcing our products locally and offer sustainably produced single-use products. We encourage customers to bring their own cups in exchange for a discount, and all proceeds from One Another Coffee go to support the creation and maintenance of Charis Park.
Katie has since launched a new business called Biscuit Baby that operates out of the commercial kitchen at Sunset Ridge Collective and provides baked goods for Rose Hip Market and One Another Coffee. The name Biscuit Baby was inspired by my daughter Simone, who just turned two yesterday. When I was pregnant with Simone, I ate biscuits from Rose Hip nearly every day of my third trimester, so Katie nicknamed her “Biscuit Baby.”
Since founding the Sunset Ridge Collective, the coffee trailer has been the primary source for community engagement on our campus. Our staff has connected with countless new neighbors at the trailer, which over time has built trust and presented new opportunities for our church to serve our surrounding community. This small but growing coffee trailer has created a new little ecosystem of creativity, inspiration, sharing, caring, and connection. I consider this magical.
Praises and Prayers
Meta Mancinelli is at Legend Oaks West Rehab as she awaits surgery on her broken leg.
Larry Bob Moore is recovering from hip replacement surgery.
Glennie Scalercio has been ill and would appreciate prayers.
A Prayer for This Lovely Day
From The Lives We Actually Have by Kate Bowler
Blessed are we who ask,
For hearts that are soft,
For eyes that are awake,
For ears that are open,
For hands to hold
The wonder that is here,
Now.
