A call to ministry along with a desire to make friends and fight off loneliness led Cristin Cooper to launch Coop’s Soups, an innovative business and ministry. In this interview, she shares with Lewis Center Director Doug Powe about how loving God and loving neighbor led her to reach people in new and creative ways.
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Doug Powe: Cristin Cooper is a licensed local pastor who is the creator and owner of “Coop’s Soups,” a creative faith expression. To help others become familiar with who you are, share a little bit about your background.
Cristin Cooper: I grew up Assembly of God. My parents were both professors at a small Assembly of God Christian University in Lakeland, Florida before they retired. I went to a charismatic, evangelical church and had a positive Sunday school experience from zero to fifth grade. That experience really provided a foundation for me. My sister is two years older than me, and when I was in fifth grade, she was in the youth group where she started to have a less than positive experience. So, my parents decided to take us out of that church to create a different narrative when our theology was starting to naturally expand. They had already been on a journey of their own spiritual discernment, and we landed at an Episcopal church, which was the opposite of Assembly of God. I graduated fifth grade, and by the end of the summer, we attended an Episcopal church, where I served as an acolyte. Through this, I developed an understanding of the intellectual side of doctrine and church history. I really felt like I was a part of the story as I experienced communion and the Lord’s Supper week after week and helped serve on the altar. From sixth grade to college, we went to this Episcopal church.
Shortly after college, I went to Australia for a year where I worked at a Baptist church. Baptist looks more Methodist in Australia when it comes to theology and liturgy. By the end of that year, I told the pastors that I felt called to ministry. They affirmed my call and said, “We know! We see a lot of gifting, and you seem to really love this.” So, at the end of 2013, I asked “What do I do? I’m going back to America.” They said, “You go to seminary.”
So, I returned to the US and started looking for a job at a church. I was still Episcopal and was looking at churches in the D.C. Metro area, but they weren’t hiring full time youth or young adult pastors, and I needed a full-time position. There was a local Methodist church which offered me a full-time role, and they also contributed to my seminary degree. So, I came to Wesley, and they said, “We’ll give you even more scholarship money if you become Methodist.” So, I said: “Well, now I’m Methodist!” With all that upbringing and those church experiences, that shift was easy for me because I’ve had this real sense inside of me that so many of these denominations are meaningful expressions of how to live out your love for God and neighbor. Are they all getting it right? No. No perfect place, no perfect people. So, it comes down to “where are you finding a sense of home?”
While I was at Wesley Seminary discerning this call to be a pastor, I never quite felt called to be the pastor wearing a robe at the front of the church. That never quite felt right; that feels removed for me, though it works for other pastors. I was called to be with the people. I want to feel more connected to the congregation. Not necessarily robed or at the front of the church. When you look at mission and outreach, I have a lot of questions about why so many of the programs being in the church walls when the preaching encourages us to get out. Toward the end of seminary, I started to ask questions which led me to the ministry I’m doing now.
Douglas Powe: That sets us up for the work you’re doing now. Your emphasis on bringing people together and creativity brought you to Coop’s Soup. So, what is Coop’s Soups? How did Coop’s Soups get started?
Cristin Cooper: Coop’s Soups is a soup business and ministry. It is soup to share as an awesome way to make friends and fight off loneliness. If you go to our website, it says “we started with a ladle and a dream,” but that’s not actually true, it really started with our own loneliness. I gravitated towards divergent church examples, marginal or alternative spaces that were doing creative outside the box ministry. There was one church at the time called “Simple Church” in Massachusetts that my friend and I visited for the weekend. We went to dinner church, and the next day we joined them in the kitchen while they baked bread. Then, later that afternoon, they sold that bread at their farmer’s market as an alternative funding stream for the dinner church. This took some pressure off, so the congregation did not have to fully support the pastor, and provided them with another creative outreach opportunity to meet their neighbors who weren’t coming to the dinner church. I found this model meaningful when it comes to considering how we are called to be in the public space.
In the fall of 2018, I felt called to explore a dinner church type model in my apartment. I was discerning ordination and what it looks like post seminary. I would graduate in a year, but I felt like God was saying: “Cristin, start experimenting with this now. Don’t wait for a DS to appoint you to your creative idea fresh out of seminary when they don’t know you and nobody knows what’s possible. You don’t even know.” So, I felt like God was saying, “you just need to explore this now for your own faith journey or own kind of experiment.”
So, I invited neighbors and friends over to my house once a week for soup and bread, and we talked about topics that mattered to us at the time. We discussed the relationship of church and state, abortion, LGBTQ+, some of the topics that in so many church experiences are off the table. I had been told at one point, “those are social issues, those are not spiritual issues.” While it felt good to be talking about topics that were “off limits,” there was also vulnerability as we spoke from our hearts about these important issues. I started to see what happens when we gather at a table and slow down. When there’s nothing scheduled after the meal and nobody can look at the clock and say, “I can only be here for so long.” When we gather, we create a safe space with rules of belonging. You belong because you’re human. So, there’s really something to slowing down, becoming present, and wanting to get to know more of who God is by breaking bread and getting to know our neighbor.
Douglas Powe: How did you move beyond this initial group to expand that community? Making disciples is critical for you. Often in creative faith expressions, discipleship is not always a priority. But for you that is central. So, how do you expand while helping people to really make discipleship a priority?
Cristin Cooper: In the spring, the people who were gathering at my house started to say, “the soup is good. You should think about selling it.” I remembered the simple church model, so I investigated it, and we started in spring of 2019. I had not counted on the farmer’s market being a place where we would have meaningful connections with our neighbors. I thought this is going to help support the ministry financially. We’re going to tell people that we eat this soup at a dinner church, and they might want to come to the dinner church. They weren’t interested in going into a dinner church, but they were willing to talk with us for 20 minutes at the farmer’s market and get to know us. In doing so, they felt known and valued as well.
Because we’ve been doing this for a little while, we now have two different communities in a lot of ways. We have the dinner church community, and then we have this farmer’s market community. This past Sunday, somebody was saying, “the line to get soup is so long, but getting the soup is a two-minute or three-minute transaction.” But we are really building community and getting to know our neighbors. We ask questions like “How did your son’s soccer game go last week? We know that he was nervous about that.” “How’s your dad in the nursing home?” “How was your mom’s surgery?” These relationships have really grown. A lot of our farmer’s market customers are part of our village now, and we’re part of their village as well.
We really know these customers and what’s going on in their life. Over time people who have alternative jobs and flexibility in their day to day asked how they could get more connected. So, I opened opportunities for people to join me in the kitchen to make soup. None of these people have a church or practice of going to worship. But they’re entering a church kitchen when they would otherwise not enter a church. We have prayer books like the Upper Room available, and a lot of the people who come to make soup with me take them home and then they come back talking about them. These are folks who would not walk through a church door, but they are walking through a church door into the kitchen. They’re finding a sense of belonging and encountering God’s grace in that space.
We also make soup and donate it to the Manna Food Center once a month, which is limited to 10 volunteer spaces due to safety in the kitchen. In addition to making the soup, we eat the soup to counter the charity mindset of “oh, I’m here to serve. I couldn’t take from this pot.” We say, “This soup is good enough for our neighbors. This soup is good enough for us.” We pray before we eat in a way that invokes the communion of saints, including not only those who have come before us, but also our neighbors who will be eating with us at the table in spirit. So, that’s how we went from the dinner church to what it looks like now.
I am so passionate about discipleship. What does it look like to take soup as a tool to get to know our neighbors who are made in the image of God? What does it mean to get to know more of who God is in that encounter and be present to how God is calling you to live in that moment? So, it is missional and outreach. There is also an undercurrent of a Sabbath practice that’s a part of that. There’s a practice of slowing down, which is counter cultural. I think in slowing down, that’s where authenticity and depth of relationship is made manifest. It’s this practice of loving God and loving our neighbor. It’s also a practice of slowing down and putting into your schedule the priority of relationship with others, which includes a relationship with God. Those two things together are so important. We can’t build relationships from a place of efficiency and productivity, or anything that looks like capitalism. Slowing down and peace go hand in hand.
Douglas Powe: Many of these individuals, as you said, would not walk through the doors of a church, but you’re helping them to have God encounters and to love their neighbor. How do you get them to become more comfortable with some of the traditional practices? Or do you not worry about that piece?
Cristin Cooper: I don’t really worry about discipleship as much as I worry about being faithful to God’s call to be in community with my neighbors. In being faithful to this call, I trust that my neighbors are encountering God’s grace. As people share their stories and encounter God’s grace, they will ask where do your values come from? Why do you live your life the way you do? Then there’s an opportunity to proclaim the kingdom of God in my life, the see what happens next and keep an open palm in that process.
I’ll share one example from the farmer’s market. We have a customer that’s been with us since we launched in 2019. In fall 2021 He came up to our booth and said, “I’ve just visited your website for the first time, and I saw that you’re a church, and I have nothing good to say about the church, but I have everything good to say about you all.” He only knows us in the context of the farmer’s market, and how we interact, hold space, and treat our neighbors. I felt so grateful to point to what it looks like to be faithful in God in the context of discipleship and to have him be able to say in his own way, “I see the light of Christ.” He donated 20 hams to our ministry to then feed our neighbors experiencing food insecurity. Again, he wants nothing to do with the religious part, but he’s participating in the space we’re creating for everyone to participate in the kingdom of God. That’s how I think about discipleship. I don’t so much worry about it, but I care a lot about creating spaces for people to encounter God’s grace and to have follow up opportunities to participate in God’s grace or ask more questions and have further conversation.
Douglas Powe: You are reaching people that many congregations are not able to reach. What are the barriers that more established congregations have in reaching these individuals that you’re connecting with? It’s obvious from listening to you that these individuals are seeking a relationship, community, and even faith community. But established congregations can’t make that connection. So, what are the barriers for congregations? Why do you think you have had more success in doing so?
Cristin Cooper: One obvious reason to me is that we are in the community every single week. We are outside the church walls so there’s a consistency in terms of building trust and credibility. People can trust that their soup maker will always be there. Another reason is the setup. We’re out in public space and we’re not promoting our church. The tool we’re using to meet our neighbor is nourishment—a literal jar of nourishment. It provides the opportunity to have a conversation about our church and our ministry, but first it is about nourishment, which is helpful. So, in terms of people’s comfort levels, they’re comfortable coming up and talking about soup, which is a neutral starting place. Our soup is dairy free and gluten free, and we did that on purpose because we want it to be shared in community. We wanted to think about as many dietary restrictions. We hear a lot of people’s health stories, which is vulnerable.
I have a CRV, and my ministry can fit in my car. At the very beginning I said, “I want my hands free. I want to be 100% available to talk to my neighbor and not be wrestling with a lot of supplies.” My experience on Sunday morning was somebody shows up to church and the pastor says “Actually, I need to put these programs by the door, and I need to refill the baptism thing.” While these are important things, they prevent you from hearing about people’s week because you must do the thing with all the supplies. My costs are low since everything fits in my car, and there’s a real privilege in that. I have a lot of respect for my colleagues that have churches they must keep up. Buildings are important. They do meaningful things, and they’re a weight and a burden. I think that my colleagues would say that too; both things are true.
Our ministry really is with the people outside the church walls week after week. We’re not in a committee meeting guessing what our neighbors want, we are with our neighbors. We hear them, week after week, tell us how they spent their weekend, how their week went, what’s coming up in their lives. When I think about what creative things we can do that would make a big impact, I don’t have a big leap. I feel like we really know intimately what the creative solution is to make an impact on their life.
Doug Powe: As you think about the journey you’ve taken, where do you see this going over the next three to five years? Do you see yourself continuing as you are? Do you see yourself moving towards more of an established brick and mortar? Where do you see yourself going?
Cristin Cooper: I can’t imagine my ministry without the farmer’s market. Five years is a long time from now, but the farmer’s market is where I and my team practice loving God and loving our neighbors. So, I see us, in some way, always being at the farmer’s market and having that be central. I don’t want too many things to become a distraction, so that then feels rushed.
We do seem to be gaining some real credibility with the food equity space in Montgomery County. We were invited to join a food security call and lead a meditation at the beginning. I don’t have a vision for what that looks like [for us]quite yet, but I’m paying attention, and we are getting invited into the food equity space. I have always paid attention to [the fact that]hungry people are Jesus’s people. I’m going to keep going through those doors as they open, and I don’t quite have a vision, but I will keep saying yes.
Then the final piece would be that I’m in this community of women food entrepreneurs. An idea that kind of keeps coming up is how we can work together and create accessible space for women food entrepreneurs to have commercial kitchen access that is reasonable and creates dignity for their business, so that then they can also use that money to support their families. I’m a part of a group that about four times a year, we get back together and dream of a brick and mortar. I like the idea of calling it “Sophia’s Kitchen” going back to the feminine, Spirit of God in Proverbs. That is an exciting space for me, and the women in this group. If we really wanted to make that happen, we could. In terms of a brick and mortar, that’s the kind of brick and mortar I want to be a part of. Cafés are super fun, and I go to them and say, “this is cute,” and I mean it. It’s so cute, but it feels a whole lot like a church in not the ways that are meaningful to me. It feels like a mortgage. That’s an attractional model where I would have to attract you to come to my building. I don’t want to spend the time and energy attracting you, I’d rather hang out with you. I want to go where you are. I don’t want to do all that work. I would rather be in a co-working like space. That would be cool.
Douglas Powe: Well, Cristin, thank you so much. This has been wonderful, and I love the work you’re doing and the way that you are truly using your term neighboring. Thank you for being with us.
Cristin Cooper: Thank you.
Rel
ated Resources
- Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation by F. Douglas Powe Jr. and Lovett H. Weems Jr.
- 4 Key Practices of Community Engagement by Doug Powe and Sam Marullo
- The Bright Promise of Alternative Faith Communities by Ann A. Michel
Photo by Brown Bag Photography on Lightstock
