Spokane’s Home of Shalom brings worship to a coffee house atmosphere
By Lucille Stutesman | FāVS News
“It’s not the building that you go to, it’s the people that you’re doing life with.”
This is what Tyler Kern’s Home of Shalom is based on: the idea that church is people, not a building.
Kern, who moved to Spokane from Michagan last year to work as Shine 104.9’s chaplain, started the Shalom community earlier this year.
Home of Shalom concept
His concept is centered around authenticity, acceptance and community through community service and discussions about difficult topics — such as seasonal depression.
“I want to have an authentic community where we’re truly ourselves and we don’t have to put on a mask and pretend. You don’t have to wear certain clothes. You don’t have to make a certain amount of money,” Kern said. “You can really come as you are and be accepted for who you are from whatever walk of life you are in and whatever you identify as.”
The unconventional church revolves around two different kinds of events: weekend Simple Acts of Kindness Events and a Friday night Get Together.
Simple Acts of Kindness Events, or SAKE, is essentially weekend community service.
The Get Togethers have a frame: music for the first 45 minutes, then an ice breaking game — with a prize — then a conversation on a set heavy, relevant topic.
“Each Get Together, it’ll have a guest who really helps to model that vulnerability and transparency. So, whether it’s a professional in the industry who can share a lot of their experiences or if it’s somebody who’s gone through it and can share a strong testimony of, ‘hey, I’ve been through this and this is what happened and how I how I’ve overcome it,’” Kern said. “That could be with things like domestic violence where it’s going to be somebody who has lived it and experienced it and can share their experiences and model that vulnerability.”
Music is an important part of the Get Togethers, Kern said. He wants to bring in a diverse set of music.
“[What] I would like to see happen is that I bring in a diversity of styles of music,” he said. “I think that that’s caused a lot of problems and splits and arguments in church settings is on music.”
Home of Shalom is a departure from the traditional church style, as well as some of the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventists.. It aims to promote inclusivity and acceptance from people who have been hurt by religion, Kern explained.
“I think the big target audience I had for the true community was what I referred to as people that have been turned and burnt or turned off by church or burned by church,” he said. “Maybe that’s because they’ve had an experience that has really turned them off or they’ve gone to a church and felt ostracized maybe because they wore jewelry, or they didn’t wear fancy enough clothes or because of their socioeconomic status or sexual identification.”
Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace that is often used as a greeting; however, Kern says it can mean more.
“It has so many more meanings,” Kern said. “I actually like the definition harmony. I like to say that Home of Shalom is really about living together in harmony with God our creator and with each other.”
Home of Shalom has no permanent location — yet — Kern said until there is a solid location, the gatherings will take place in coffee shops and community centers. The inaugural Spokane Home of Shalom, which happened late last month, brought in around 60 people.
“I especially like the emphasis on making it comfortable for people who aren’t necessarily connected to a church in a local like a coffee shop or whatever, just something where people might feel more comfortable coming than a particular church building,” said Greg Naker, an attendee who works for the non-profit Spokane Fatherhood Initiative. “I love seeing people come from all kinds of different churches because Jesus kind of prayed for that unity.”
Corey Pace, who found Kern through Shine 104.9, said he already knew some of the other attendees.
“I like the fellowship. You run into people you haven’t seen in a while,” Pace said. “It’s kind of like a family reunion in a way.”
Kern said for now he plans to host Home of Shalom at different coffee shops and community centers each month, but has plans to open a permanent location in the future.
Home of Shalom was born in Michigan, out of the COVID pandemic. Kern was able to build a network stretching across the Midwest to the east coast.
“We’d have about 20 people in-person and about 15 or so on Zoom,” Kern said. “We picked up people all across the east coast from Canada down to Florida, Illinois, Boston.”
Kern brought this concept to Spokane when he was hired by the Seventh-day Adventist church to start a Home of Shalom on the west coast, as well to serve as Chaplin for Shine 104.9.
“It’s more of a non-traditional type thing. It’s really geared towards what the Adventist church calls the Next Gen church plant,” he said. “I think I was that young person, but I think we have a rise of young people kind of questioning what’s the value in tradition, because they question everything.”
Kern emphasized questioning traditions.
“I’m talking like Gen Z and beyond,” Kern said. “I want to question everything, and the older generations just do traditions for the sake of traditions and don’t really question them. And so, for me as a millennial, I feel like I’m kind of a bridge between those two.”
Kern said although he built the original Home of Shalom partly online, which he still runs every Friday on zoom, he values in-person connection.
“What I realized during the pandemic was you can build community online, but I still believe that there’s value and need for the in-person local community as well,” he said. “When you need somebody to come help to you, you need somebody physically sometimes to come over, and I believe it’s important to have that 2 a.m. phone call where you can, anytime you need it, have somebody that you can rely on who’s gonna drop everything and show up for you when you really need it.”
Kern believes Home of Shalom is the church of the future because of its unique format.
“I really believe this is getting back to the basics of what the early church was, but I also call it the church of the future because it’s like I think that people want something more simple,” Kern said. “I think that our attention spans are shrinking and I want it to be simple, engaging and again. Authenticity and transparency vulnerability are the main core values that I want to see out of this faith community and the gatherings we have.”
Kern grew up with parents in a rocky marriage, he felt church was a place where people would not act true to themselves, this led him to value authenticity and vulnerability.
“I grew up in the church and my parents had an unhealthy marriage, so I saw their home life and I saw their constant fighting,” Kern said. “It was a place where you go to pretend like you’re good and everything is great. And then you go home and resume your life, and it wasn’t a safe space to be real and honest and vulnerable.”
The next Get Together is 7 p.m. March 21 at Ladder Coffee., with a Simple Acts of Kindness Event the next day 2 p.m. at High Bridge Park.
