Doing Business on Faith
This Salem coffee shop brews coffee, hot teas and serves sandwiches and soups.
But Bibles are free for the taking on a small white bookshelf. Two conference rooms that each house a long table and large, leather chairs are booked most weekday evenings by Bible study groups that meet there regularly.
A sign on the wall matches the shop's dark red interior. It reads "Give us this day our Daily Grind."
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When Linda Thompson and her daughter, Erin Clinevell, opened the Daily Grind last year, Thompson said she wanted to follow God's lead. "We have a tendency to walk in front of God," she said.
Thompson, who used to work in a wallpaper and painting business, said she prayed about whether she should open the shop. God answered, "Yes."
"Hospitality is my spiritual gift," she said. "So many people say it feels good in here. I like to think that it's Jesus in here."
Nowadays it's more common to see business owners like Thompson who incorporate values and faith in their work, sociologists say. Some call it the business of faith, where owners aren't afraid to hang a cross in their doorways and put Bible verses on the walls.
"Like 100 years ago, Christianity could have been more implicitly integrated into economic life," said Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia. "We're seeing in some cases Christians are trying to bring back the faith into their economic activity and it's more explicit."
Twila Briscoe named her child care business to reflect her religious faith. She opened Alpha Christian Child Care Center in North Roanoke 20 years ago.
"I wanted people to know upfront that we were a Christian child care center," she said. "I didn't want someone to come who was totally opposed to teaching faith and find out that when they got here, we were Christian."
At Briscoe's school, the children listen to Bible stories in the mornings and pray before meals. Briscoe and her staff care for children as young as 18 months through age 12.
Briscoe's business is not associated with a church, though she has worked for other churches' child care centers.
Her students are not all Christians, nor are their families. Children from Buddhist and Hindu families have come there.
"I can't answer why they brought their children, but we carry on as we are," Briscoe said.
There are advantages for businesses that market their faith.
Many may receive financial incentives, such as the ability to advertise on a variety of Christian business Web sites, including www.ChristianEbuy.com, Wilcox said.
And they may attract Christian customers who want to support them.
At Christian Gymnastic Athletics, a center in Salem that offers gymnastics classes, owners Randy and Celia Dion, who attend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said some people call them because they see the word Christian in their business name.
They have pictures of Jesus up inside the center.
Supporting other believers' businesses is a biblical directive, Briscoe said.
"We need to help one another," she said. "The Scripture says the world will know we're Christians by the way we treat each other. It doesn't mean that I would negatively respond to those who aren't Christians."
Georganna Hite, an art teacher in Roanoke County schools, meets a Bible study group of fellow teachers and friends at the Daily Grind every Friday afternoon.
"They are really hospitable," Hite said. "To me, it's a treat to come ... I think you could come here Christian or non-Christian and feel comfortable."
"It's very encouraging to see businesses that are showing their faith," said Amy Fuller, a Roanoke College student who ate lunch at the Daily Grind on Friday with Ben DeWitt, another Roanoke College student.
Fuller said she spent at least five hours some days studying at the coffee shop during the last school year.
Some people increasingly are making decisions based on their values, whether it means shopping at a certain store or voting for a particular political candidate. Other businesses, such as Roman Catholic investment companies, are popping up to help people choose a portfolio that matches their beliefs and morals, Wilcox said.
Employees at Christian businesses also might discover differences from a secular workplace, such as morning prayer times or bosses who encourage employees to spend time with their families, Wilcox said.
Non-Christians, however, may feel that a Christian business discriminates against them or is "closing themselves off to the world," Wilcox added.
Businesses such as Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chicken restaurant, fit the ideal mold for those that operate on Christian principles without wearing their faith on their sleeves, said George Young, associate professor of marketing at Liberty University in Lynchburg. Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sundays, and one restaurant in Roanoke has a prayer request box into which people can drop prayer cards.
Young also named Ukrop's Super Markets, a Richmond grocery store chain that is planning a Roanoke store, as another example of a business "being faithful and obedient."
"You couldn't tell from the outside" that the owners are Christians, Young said.
Ukrop's stores are closed on Sundays.
Thompson said no one has told her that they're offended by the Daily Grind's Christian environment.
"I don't think you have to promote yourself. ... It's not that I'm going to push my faith down someone's throat," she said. "It's more how we handle the business and how we conduct ourselves. People are supposed to see Christ in us."
