At Home Under The Golden Arches:

BY REV. SARAH HOWELL-MILLER

PHOTO SHARED BY REV. CHIP WEBB

Comparisons between churches and fast food restaurants are usually disparaging — from criticism of a “Have it your way” attitude that can undermine unity in worship, to the metaphor of grabbing spiritual fast food to the detriment of deeper discipleship — but for Rev. Chip Webb, pastor of Brookstown United Methodist Church in Pfafftown, the McDonald’s golden arches have become a symbol of redemptive fellowship.

“This is really a Fresh Expression that found me,” Webb told me when we talked on the phone about the ministry at the McDonald’s on Reynolda Road in Winston-Salem. The fellowship found Webb through Gray Martin, the former Worship Committee chair at Brookstown, who coined the term “McChurch.” Martin was an older adult who worked at Quality Oil and, as Webb put it, lived at McDonald’s and went home to sleep. Before he died of cancer several years ago, Martin introduced Webb and others to the unconventional but profoundly transformative community of McChurch.

The Reynolda Road McDonald’s is an intersection of several different worlds — from Wake Forest students and faculty; to senior adults stopping on their way to and from doctor’s appointments (Webb found it was a great place to do pastoral visits with church members); to transitionally homeless or marginally housed persons who frequent the nearby public library branch, live in subsidized housing adjacent to the library, or visit a food pantry down the road.

While health-conscious middleclass Americans like myself might eschew “unhealthy” fast food whenever possible, for vulnerable people, McDonald’s is a source of affordable, calorie-dense nourishment. It is also a safe place to rest and find community.

The Fresh Expression at McDonald’s mostly manifests as one-on-one relationships with those who seek shelter there. Webb frequents the space, and two members of New Hope UMC go to McDonald’s daily looking for people to befriend.

Rev. Chip Webb and Ken, a senior advisor to the Fresh Expression

Now Brookstown is pursuing a tiny house ministry to support their new friends’ needs. Partnering with an initiative in Greensboro building tiny houses for homeless veterans, they are developing an alternative form of transitional housing. Webb notes that United Methodists love to provide a continuum of care — he cites the continuing care model of the Arbor Acres retirement community in Winston-Salem, but that we don’t when it comes to mental health diagnoses.

This Fresh Expression is reaching out to people like Jennifer, who was transitionally homeless in 2017 and who eventually was housed, though the security of her public housing is threatened by a building buyout; and Bill, who was brutally beaten by local teenagers while living under a bridge and died later that year. Webb speculates that if the tiny house ministry had been up and running, they might have saved his life; and so many other people who are innocent, abused, and victims of a system that does not account for their abilities or lack thereof.

Webb is clear that redemption happens not just for his friends experiencing homelessness, but for him and other church members. In Matthew 25, the one feeding, clothing and visiting isn’t Jesus — the one who is hungry, naked and lonely is Jesus. Ministries like the McDonald’s Fresh Expression remind us that when we seek out people to love and serve, we aren’t just being the hands and feet of Christ, we are going where Christ is already present.

The next time you stop at a McDonald’s, remember the work Webb and others are doing in Winston-Salem, and take a closer look at whoever is inside — you might just find Jesus there.