Nestled among tyro housing and companionship houses on Washington Street in Binghamton is a new coffeehouse.
Dozens of tables and chairs, big, comfy couches and Wi-Fi wait visitors to City Light Coffee. A vast chalkboard lists all a prohibited drinks. Baked products lure a eyes of anyone who is watchful for a libation to emerge from a radiant china machine.
They’re putting a large acquire out for a May First Friday, for anyone who wants to come in, including people connected with a Bizi.Fit value hunt. There will be live music.
But City Light is most some-more than a coffeehouse.
“Twenty years ago, we had a coffeehouse and suspicion it was a business,” pronounced Brandi Hefley. “That’s what we non-stop it for, and it incited into a ministry.”
Hefley came to Binghamton 5 years ago when her husband, J.J., became overdo priest during First Assembly of God. One of a initial projects they started was a Thanksgiving dish and food placement from a former café opposite a travel from a church.
When circuitously university students indispensable a place for investigate around finals, a church non-stop a building, and offering giveaway coffee and snacks. They’ll do that again for a arriving finals week, with a coffeehouse open from 7 to 1 any night.
J.J. Hefley had some other ideas for a site recently while meditative of a coffeehouse opposite from alma mater Texas Tech.
“We were means to emanate this space that was neutral, and it authorised for conversations about Jesus, God, karma, whatever,” he said. “We were means to build relationships, share a Gospel. So that is what we saw here.”
Hefley is looking to “build bridges” by removing members to consider outward a walls. He wants a church to be an item to a village and students. He sees a coffeehouse as a approach to bond with both groups.
“This place is a nonthreatening, neutral place where we can come and splash coffee. The song we’re personification isn’t going to be Christian music. It will be something neutral,” he said. “Come study. Hang out.”
First Assembly has been really active in other ways reaching out to a community, with giveaway dishes twice a week that offer some-more than 450 people in a church basement. They’ve also helped with area cleanups and propagandize projects.
At a coffeehouse, there’s a sign of “Coffee with a cause.” They’re aiming to support others in several ways, Brandi Hefley said. Proceeds go to a opposite organisation any month. In April, they gave income to homeless prevention. To cut down on waste, they offer beverages in recyclable cups.
”We’ve been means to kind of emanate a enlightenment of outreach, interpose an fad about outreach, get people involved,” J.J. Hefley said. “And we’ve been means to do that, and that’s a good thing.”
J.J. Hefley
Position: Outreach pastor, First Assembly of God, Binghamton.
Hometown: Lubbock, Texas.
Residence: Binghamton.
Education: Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; bachelor’s in psychology, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, Goodwell, Oklahoma; master’s in Bible theology, Southwestern Assemblies of God University, Waxahachie, Texas.
Family: Married 24 years to mother Brandi; daughters Madison and Peyton.
Hobbies: Working out, boxing, CrossFit, running, football fan.
City Light Coffee
Where: 254 Washington St., Binghamton.
Hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Sundays by Thursdays; open May 5 during hours of First Friday; open for university tyro finals investigate from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. May 10 to 17.