Who are the people that bus tables, wait on you, or clean your hotel room? How can a church reach these particular neighbors in a meaningful way? In episode 6, the last episode of Season 5, Sara Joy and Eric confront these questions in an interview with Kevin Finch, a former pastor and Executive Director of Big Table, an organization focused on caring for the needs of workers in the hospitality industry. Paul Cunningham, head pastor of La Jolla Presbyterian Church in California, and Eliza Harris Juliano, an principal urban planner with Canin Associates in Orlando, Florida, serve as our field guides for this episode, showing how Big Table works on the ground with a church and the important interplay between housing and transportation in meeting the tangible needs of workers within the hospitality industry.
In this episode, Eric and Sara Joy listen to the story of Kevin Finch, the Executive Director of Big Table and a former pastor who was moonlighting as restaurant critic. During his days as a pastor and a restaurant critic, Kevin was exposed to the high levels of need that existed among workers in the hospitality industry. As he sought a way to provide help and care for this often overlooked sector, he could not find a single nonprofit that was dedicated to serving this particular community. Then he received a very unusual and distinct calling from God to step up to the plate to address this need.
This calling led Kevin to begin Big Table in 2009, a nonprofit solely dedicated to meeting the needs of workers in the restaurant and hospitality industry. Operating on a referral model, Big Table helps cover rent, provide cars, assist navigating health issues, etc. for those in the hospitality industry. Kevin impresses upon listeners the need to really see the people in your community and neighborhood who are so often overlooked because these relationships are too often viewed as purely transactional. He sparks a new way of thinking and a new population to consider when it comes to caring for the least in your neighborhood.
Sara Joy and Eric also speak with two field guides who provide more insight into the work of Big Table and the needs that so many service and hospitality industry workers face in their daily lives. Paul Cunningham, head pastor of La Jolla Presbyterian Church, shares how his church helped establish a Big Table presence in the San Diego area. Through funds and connections to the local restaurants, the church has been a catalyst for expanding Big Table to southern California. Paul also shares how their collaboration with Big Table has inspired his congregants to be kinder and more generous people to those with whom they come in contact in the service industry. He reiterates the importance of seeing the unseen people in the community and caring for them in tangible ways.
Eliza Harris Juliano, another field guide for this episode, provides a helpful perspective from urban planning as she notes that housing and transportation costs together are large factors that affect the livelihood of hourly wage workers, like those in the restaurant and hospitality industries. She highlights that when workers have to live far from their job, they are more dependent on reliable transportation which can be costly when it comes to maintaining a car. She also points out that deficient and/or unreliable public transit is another hurdle that these workers face, particularly when being late to a job because of a slow bus can actually cost them their job. Providing affordable housing in places near jobs and increasing public transit infrastructure to serve these areas are ways this sector of the community can be better supported. In that regard, she encourages listeners to pay attention to zoning and advocate for better policies that create the places where people of all socioeconomic classes can live together.
Episode Contributors
Kevin Finch is the Executive Director of Big Table based in Spokane, Washington.
Rev. Dr. Paul Cunningham is the Head Pastor of La Jolla Presbyterian Church
Eliza Harris Juliano is a Principal in the Urban Design studio and serves as the firm’s Director of Urbanism at Canin Associates based in Orlando Florida.
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More information about this podcast and helpful church and urbanism resources can be found on The Embedded Church website.
Related Resources
Big Table | Serving Hope Video
The Center for Neighborhood Technology
Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY)
Yes In God's Backyard (YIGBY)
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It by M. Nolan Gray
Key Terms
- Affordable Housing
- Inclusionary Zoning
- Missing Middle Housing
- NIMBY (Not in my backyard)
- YIMBY (Yes in my backyard)
- Zoning
Show Credits
Hosted and Produced by Eric O. Jacobsen and Sara Joy Proppe
Edited by Adam Higgins | Odd Dad Out Voice Productions
Theme Music by Jacob Shaffer
Artwork by Lance Kagey | Rotator Creative