Oregon Church Sets Example for Christian Capitalism

When Pastor Eric Bahme and his wife left his church and home in Seattle, where he served as pastor for close to 15 years, and settled in the Portland, Oregon, he took a giant step in faith.

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Pastor Bahme said he was given a vision for church planting by Jesus Christ and never looked back. By the start of 2003 Bahme and his wife established a small but faithful ministry of about 60 Christians who met in a rented space in Portland. However, within a little over one year, this small church congregation--with tremendous faith in their Lord and Savior, but no cash--decided to purchase an old motel and adjoining facilities on a Portland boulevard. Once they fixed up the place, their Mission Hotel became a part of the Rodeway Inn chain. But the purchase and development of the motel was just the start of what became an ongoing enterprise. The hotel's remodeling began around Thanksgiving Day of 2004. The church members converted an old Chinese eatery into a coffee shop. They turned the bar into a child care area and youth group concert area, while the original dance hall was transformed into the church sanctuary. And so, through hard work and prayer, the Eastside Foursquare Church became a reality. Here are the five consuming focuses to which God is calling Bahme's church to fulfill: 1. To train and release ordinary people who have been with Jesus to influence and transform their communities through business, government, education, media, and the arts. 2. To be the undisputed leader in the development and implementation of a servant entrepreneurial model within the hospitality industry for the local, national, and global church. 3. To plant hundreds of churches through a multiplication process. 4. To be a church that never closes their doors. 5. To be a prophetic voice of Christ's compassion and care through involvement in social issues and intentional outreach to surrounding community. Today, Eastside Foursquare operates two hotels on the campus--a Rodeway Inn and a Quality Inn and Suites along with many other ministries including Sacred Grounds Coffee Shop, Family to Family Counseling Services, The Haven (a youth concert facility), My Father's House (an offsite family shelter), Freedom House (a faith-based on campus recovery and discipleship program), and People Works (an on campus vocational training program). Plans are also underway to develop HOLD (Hands-on-Leadership-Development), a school for Mission-based entrepreneurial church planting and development. We've developed training programs designed to get people back on their feet and become self-supporting, because we believe you must minister to the whole man--physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The catalyst for all this is the hotel campus. We've still got lots of work to do in completing the hotel but already we're making a major difference in the community. One Portland police officer told us that the hotel we purchased had become the 'biggest crack house in Portland' and that in 6 months we did what the city couldn't do in ten years to transform our community. Today, more than 500 people call this ministry home and over 400 people have made decisions to follow Christ. The church holds the potential not only to touch lives through the acquisition of revenue to be donated to the community, but also through its daily operations. Staffed primarily by church members, this Rodeway Inn is "a place of peace, rest and total commitment to customer service that will exceed what is commonly found in the world today," according to its website. At the heart of the ministry is the desire to reach people through relationships built in a comfortable environment. According to Pastor Bahme, the Sacred Grounds coffee shop is "a place of relational community." It is the bridge between the church and the community. Though not blaringly Christian, the cozy coffee shop is decorated with signed posters of Christian bands, creating a contemporary cafe environment comfortable for studying and chatting. For more information on Portland Eastside Foursquare Church, the hotel and the various ministries, phone 503-226-4900 or go to [url=http://www.eastsidechurch.net]http://www.eastsidechurch.net[/url].