Where’s The Elephant In This Room?

The second Elephant Room conference took place this last week. In watching some of the video’s, reading some live blogging of the event and looking at some footage from last year, one question keeps nagging at me: where’s the elephant? It seems to me that the real elephant in the room is the fact that there is no elephant actually in this room.

Here are the things that all the panelists basically have in common:

• Most are white.
• All are very American.
• All have national platforms through speaking and writing.
• Most are mega-church pastors.
• Most, not all, are basically reformed theologically.

The conference continues to confirm something that I think has been clear for awhile. Every mega-church type ministry stands on essentially the same methodological foundation. The shift from seeker church to emerging church to neo-reformed church was not really a very significant shift. It was different skin on basically the same bones. The bones in question are all the characteristics of attractional ministry: compelling leader people want to follow, a service people want to go to with worship people want to hear. It’s the homogeneous unit principle (pretty good summary there) at work in every case.

I’m not saying that everything about that is bad. For sure exalting men instead of Christ is bad. Magnifying American idolatry with a Jesus shaped glass is bad. Creating compounds of wealthy white Americans  is bad. I’m being cynical. I know I am. And with Paul I have to say “whether in pretense or in truth.” And what Paul is addressing in Philippians is much more heinous that I what I’m speaking to. He’s talking about people that were preaching so as to intentionally make things harder for Paul in prison because they were jealous. God will expose every false motive. Mine included. As I’ve said elsewhere, I know that a lot of these guys have great hearts, but we are talking about Elephants right?

The issues I’m raising, are, to my mind at least, actual elephants. But the only way to have a real conversation about gospel fidelity, pastoral ministry and methodological concerns is to have people involved who are radically different and not all working off essentially the same grid. One of the stated purposes, or questions rather, that the Elephant room brings up is when they say this at the end of their statement:

What if we created a new ‘tribe?’ A tribe based on being humble enough to listen and reconsider what the Scriptures actually assert. A tribe that holds the essential tenets of the faith with a ferocious intensity and is open handed with everything else. Maybe, together, we can create a new center?

The end statement about creating a new center is so interesting to me. Are we really the center? As another writer pointed out, isn’t Jesus the center? And really, isn’t Jesus working in other parts of the world in ways that should make us feel some shame? In the discussions, the panelists do acknowledge in their conversations that the American church has been in steep decline (no conversion growth) for a long time and that we are headed the way of Western Europe. But it is not so all over the world. The church is exploding in China and parts of Africa and South America. The “center” of Christianity has already shifted. The momentum of gospel proclamation and kingdom expansion isn’t here any more like it is in some other parts of the world where genuine movements are happening.

Now, that sounds like an Elephant to me.

I would love to hear from an African pastor thriving in a Muslim context, a leader of a Chinese house church movement, an Anglican bishop (there are some thriving Anglican churches. Also, don’t forget, C.S. Lewis was Anglican, and we love him.), and an American Mega-Church pastor or two get into a room together. Talk about an Elephant. Maybe then we could humble ourselves and learn from the people in the center of God’s movement in the world. Maybe then we would find ourselves having to hold fast to the historic, creedal tenants of our faith and the revelation of Jesus Christ and acknowledge that God is working and only does so when we humble ourselves enough to behold his face.

Lessons for Disciples: Part 1

Matthew 10 is full of Jesus’ instructions and warnings for the disciples he sends out to proclaim, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Do we believe that the lessons Jesus taught his disciples about how to go about mission, and what to expect in mission, still apply to us today? Do we believe that we are disciples, in the same vein as these early ones? Some might be inclined to say that Jesus hasn’t sent us in the way that he has sent these disciples in Mathew 10. He was sending them to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.” He hasn’t sent subsequent Christians on a mission near as radical as that. Our mission is to talk about Jesus should the opportunity randomly arise if I happen to run into a non-Christian somewhere. Right?

I want to suggest that not only has Jesus sent us on a mission as radical as the one he sends these disciples on, he has  sent us on one that is significantly more radical than theirs and equally as intentional. Every piece of instruction he gives to his disciples as he sends them out applies to the disciples of today. But one thing that becomes immediately clear: It only applies to disciples that are going. It is for those that are, as we like to say these days, “on mission.” Outside of the context of radical following of Jesus, these words are simply the instructions of a long gone leader to long dead disciples in a bygone world.

The exhortations and the warnings of Jesus in this passage are for us now. And I suspect that as Christians increasingly regain their identity as disciples sent in the power of the Holy Spirit, the warnings of impending persecution and the hope of God’s perfect grace and Justice will have a deepening meaning for us. I pray it will be so!

Deeper, Higher, Wider

Before we get into what Mathew 10 actually has to say about discipleship (in the next installments), I want to give a few reasons why I say that our mission is more radical than the disciples in Matthew 10:

1. Jesus sent his disciples to the Jews only; we have been sent into the whole world.
2. The disciples were given authority (the Holy Spirit) for a particular time and task; the Holy Spirit dwells with us always.
3. The disciples did not yet know the power of Christ’s death and resurrection; we have been baptized into it.

The lessons of Jesus to his followers about being a disciple on mission are still radically applicable because our mission hasn’t changed. It has become deeper, higher and wider through the cross, but the essential DNA that Jesus imparts to the disciples in sending them out into the world, is the same DNA with which he sends us.

What do you think? Do you agree that we are on the same mission, albeit a deeper, higher and wider one? What would that mean for us?

The Written Word

 Blogs are making every writer a published writer (sort of). There are certain, pretty obvious, upsides and downsides there. I look over at the button to my right, even now as I type and I see that it says “publish,” reminding me that what I write matters and probably isn’t going to go anywhere any time soon. In the words of the Social Network, “The internet isn’t written in pencil…it’s written in ink.”

I suppose that should give me, or anybody, pause. It might mean that I should write in a way that is thoughtful and measured. It probably also means that I should let something marinate a bit before putting it up for the world to read. Too much writing, or communication in general, is like vomit; it’s a visceral reaction to something somebody swallowed, that didn’t sit with them. Guilty.

In the informal world of instant communication, there isn’t much space for ideas, or the people that bring them, to change us. Change takes far too long. I don’t advocate then abandoning all technological communication, but I do offer a caution (to myself first): Ingesting information isn’t the same as being transformed. That’s probably old news, but it’s easy to forget in a world where the written word and the ideas it communicates are both fast becoming a trifling mess. Can an idea written on paper still transform you? Or has the flood bowled you over?

One last thought. Writing is unique it it’s power to transform. There is something simply “other” about text as a way of communicating. Let us not forget the power of that, the life or death that it can bring and the people who have died to preserve words of life,  in the midst of a world that says things like lol and brb.

Mega Questions

I’m not interested in making church size a moral issue. The issue is simply not whether we should be for big churches or small churches. The issue is fidelity to the mission given to us by Jesus Christ. If you are in the end of Matthew, that mission is making disciples of all nations and if you are in the end of Luke, it’s proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins to the end of the earth. Either way, the desire of most Jesus loving Christians is that people that don’t know Jesus would know him. It is a burning in our bones that cannot be satisfied, nor should it be.

It’s for this reason that I was honestly a bit disheartened by the recent research released by Leadership Network about Mega Churches. Now, I’m not against mega churches, because they are churches, and we must love The Bride. And there were some encouraging things about the study. In particular, people who attend mega churches generally consider their church to be spiritually vital. I have been in mega churches that absolutely fit that description. The preaching is rich and deep, worship is living and the people are growing in the knowledge of Christ. All of this is beautiful and I say, “thank you God for these churches!!”

Along-side the idea that a lot of people view these churches as spiritually vibrant, they also have good marks in measures of institutional viability. They tend to be in good financial shape, despite the economic downturn; they have new people coming (overall %8 growth rate, %40 percent of the people are new within the last year); the people that are coming are young. All of these things are generally good signs of an organizations institutional viability and longer term outlook.

But, I can’t help but notice one massive, glaring omission from the research, that made it feel more self-congratulatory than self-evaluating: there was no information about where the new people were coming from. There was no conversion growth information, no breakdown indicating whether the new members came from other churches or church backgrounds. In other words, we don’t know (at least from this study) whether this way of approaching church creates magnets for the already polarized, or discipleship multiplication. If our concern is fidelity to Jesus and the mission that he has called us to, to make disciples to the ends of the earth, then our measures and evaluations ought to reflect that I think.

Many of the pastors I respect are mega church guys with mega influence and a mega platform. This isn’t for no reason and I’m not interested in raining on that parade. I’m just saying, in order to be faithful to Jesus Christ, we need to evaluate whether we are being faithful to Jesus Christ, not just whether what we have built is working.

Advent Post on Sparks and Ashes

Paul Pastor has been blogging at Sparks and Ashes the last few months and posted a piece I wrote about Advent. I haven’t blogged in sometime, writers block or something, but anyway, Check it out if you are so inclined.

Misunderstanding Bonhoeffer

ALS is reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer this month. Our book club is structured so that each month one person makes three book suggestions, and the rest of the group votes to choose one. Life Together was one of my picks; it was between that, some short stories of Truman Capote and a book on literary criticism by Lewis. I really wanted to read Life Together, but I tried to hide it and pretend I wanted them all the same. The reason I wanted it to be our pick, very simply, is that the book rocked me. I think us Americanized, strategy and personality driven, power and position hungry Christians can benefit from the simple vision of Christ and His people Bonhoeffer was working out 3/4 of a century ago.

Sitting with my friend Travis at the Bi-Partisan Cafe the other day, I realized how significant this book might have actually been for me. He was talking about a preaching class he had taken at Western Seminary and how it may have been a game changer for how he will approach preaching from here on out. I can’t really say that something will be a game changer for me until something is actually different from what it was before, but my heart and mind were at least moved, and some sort of shift happened in my vision.

Preface

Before I go too far, let me tell you about the first time I tried to read this book. Emphasis on tried. It was my Freshman or Sophomore year at Multnomah. I picked up the book and got so frustrated by the end of the first chapter that I never finished. My beef was pretty simple: Bonhoeffer was trying to make ministry about Jesus and I still wanted it to be about me. I got stuck mid-way through the first chapter where he lays into “visionary” types. It seemed that this man was identifying the person I had aspired to be as somebody very destructive to the Christian community that God actually wants to form. He distinguished between the “divine reality” of Christian community and the “human ideal” of what it ought to be. These, according to Bonhoeffer, are mutually exclusive. Visionary leaders, he says, are the sort that come into a community with a “human ideal”, usually based on their own personality, however spiritual that personality might be, and usurp the much less crisp, clean and idealized (not to mention Christ-centered) version of church life that God actually intends. The result is a “personality cult” that is an affront to the gospel.

Of course my response to all this was frustration. Doesn’t God give the gift of leadership? Isn’t it right that we follow people who have clear “vision”? What about the epistles? Don’t the scriptures themselves give precedent for a leadership style that instructs a community in “divine ideals”? For that matter, aren’t there “divine ideals”? Why is my only choice between a “human ideal” or “divine reality”? Well, these questions kept me from hearing the rest of what Bonhoeffer had to say, but I am very glad I ended up back in that book.

Humble Pie

If I’m honest, Bonhoeffer is painting a vision of church that is more Jesus centered than I’m comfortable with. He takes time in the book to address what the community does when they come together, what they do when they are alone and why solitude is important for the health of the community. Among this and many other things he talks about ministry, the public reading of Scriptures, confession, communion and prayer. Regardless of the topic, he remains Christocentric. Whenever I read and began to ask, “what is my place in this community of faith?” he redirected my question. Instead he kept forcing me to ask, “how can Christ occupy every place in community of faith?”

This might be a game changer.

Without getting into every detail of this short but pregnant work, I want to give one example of what I mean. Toward the end of the book, Bonhoeffer wrote a chapter about ministry. He begins with an indictment. Within any gathering of believers, this question will quickly surface; “who is the greatest?” This question will come, and the spirit behind it must be weeded out as fast as possible, eradicated was his word:

We know who it is that sows this thought in the Christian community. But perhaps we do not bear in mind enough that no Christian community ever comes together without this thought immediately emerging as a seed of discord. Thus at the very beginning of Christian fellowship there is engendered an invisible, often unconscious, life-and-death contest. “There arose a reasoning among them”: this is enough to destroy a fellowship…Hence it is very necessary that every Christian community from the very outset face this dangerous enemy squarely, and eradicate it.

This is the first paragraph of the chapter. Rather than begin by talking about pastors, preaching, discipling, evangelism or anything we might normally associate with “ministry”, he exposes our bent toward sin. He helps us see the fact that even the best of humans (if those who spent three years with Jesus did it, how much more will we?) will look to take for themselves an authority that is only granted to Christ. The words of Jesus in response to the reasoning of the disciples in Mark, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all,” must have been reverberating in Bonhoeffer’s ears when he wrote this chapter, because he begins with the things that are last.

He starts by calling us to the ministry of “holding one’s tongue,” encouraging the death of gossip and that we “speak not evil one of another, brethren”. Then, the ministry of meekness, captured well by Thomas a’ Kempis: “This is the highest and most profitable lesson, truly to know and to despise ourselves. To have no opinion of ourselves, and to think always well and highly of others, is great wisdom and perfection.” He follows these up with the ministry of listening, recognizing that it is not only significant that God speaks but that he listens; of helpfulness, pointing out that if we’re too busy writing sermons to lift a finger for our brothers and sisters, we miss the call of God; of bearing, because we have been called to bear one another’s burdens. After these very “lastly” versions of ministry, he gets to the classics: proclamation and authority.

Earlier in the book he said that the goal of all Christian community is that we “meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.” When Bonhoeffer talks about proclamation of the Word, he takes this out of the pulpit only, and puts it in the hands of every Christian. It is not only the so-called professionals who bear the responsibility of proclamation, all of us are called to apply the gospel to one another’s lives. But before we can engage our brothers and sisters in proclamation all the other last-like forms of ministry must come:

Then where the ministry of listening, active helpfulness, and bearing with others is faithfully performed, the ultimate and highest service can also be rendered, namely, the ministry of the Word of God…If is not accompanied by worthy listening, how can it really be the right word for the other person? If it is contradicted by one’s own lack of active helpfulness, how can it be a convincing and sincere word? If it issues, not from a spirit of bearing and forbearing, but from impatience and the desire to force its acceptance, how can it be the liberating and healing word?

The chapter ends on the ministry of authority. Not because it is most important, but because it is preceded by all the others: “Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister (servant).”  Only someone who has learned to hold thier tongue, meekness, to listen, bear, help and proclaim the gospel can be trusted to have an authority that isn’t born out of the question, “who is the greatest?” Instead, they gladly say, “to Christ be all glory.” Like Paul they say, “follow me, as I follow Christ.” And like John the Baptist they say, “He must increase but I must decrease.”

On Balance

My mistake in the beginning was to think that Bonhoeffer was eradicating leadership when he was actually trying to teach us what it means to have a Christ-like leadership rather than forming another “personality cult”. In a deeply related way, he takes the priesthood of all believers seriously by taking the responsibility for ministry of every kind out of the hands of the professional clergy only and places it with the whole community.

At times, Bonhoeffer gets a bit prescriptive, making very definitive statements about how prayer and scripture reading and worship should be carried out. We can take these things in hand and appreciate the intention and principles that drive them. He wasn’t writing theoretically, this was pastoral instruction to people he was in community with.

I have focused on one angle of his book, how he deals with ministry and authority, recognizing that the work is more holistic than that. For the rest, and all of it is good, pick it up, it’s a mere 120 pages and well worth your time. Also I’m interested in reading the biography that just came out by Eric Metaxas called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

Greek Food

As it turns out, a lot of the things I’m putting up on this blog are food related. I guess that’s just what I have to write about lately. And I suppose it’s a lot of what Allison and I love to do together and with friends; food related things. A lot could be said about food; theologically, socially and economically. But I will leave those more philosophical discussions for a later time. For now my concern is the kind of food I like best in the world. My taste for this brand of delicious was first whet when I was in the country of it’s origin for our honeymoon: Greece. That’s when feta first rocked my taste buds as it set like a glacier atop a volcano of vegetables oozing molten olive oil and balsamic vinegar down it’s slopes. When Allison and I returned from Greece, I knew I couldn’t leave my feta on the island of Santorini. It, among other Mediterranean ingredients and dishes have become a staple in our household.

Our search for an incredible Greek feast landed us in the Pearl at Eleni’s Philoxenia & Estiatorio. It was a surprise for my lady on our 1st anniversary, and again on our second. I scoured the web, reading reviews, looking at pictures of food and perusing menus. The place didn’t seem like much of a gamble as it was very highly regarded, and for good reason. The concept behind the restaurant is that of a lazy Mediterranean evening, slowly consuming along side good company, platters of various foods strewn across the table while sipping a crisp, sweet Greek wine. Most of the menu is taken up by appetizer platters and indeed the whole point is to pick a number of plates, some entrees and some appetizers and eat for hours. Like one big, super tasty snacking session.

There are a few dishes I can recommend, because I ate them and they were amazing. The first is Ktipiti, which is essentially spicy melted feta that you use as a dip. This has become a must have on our infrequent visits. The next was a salmon fettuccine in a roasted tomato sauce. It sounds normal, and Italian for that matter, but I assure you, this dish isn’t your typical seafood fettuccine. Prepare to be pleasantly surprised. The highlight of my entree experience was the rack of lamb. Lamb is a meat that often accompanies Mediterranean fare, and this was the best I’ve ever had.

The last dish I’m going to highlight was so good and so unique, that Allison decided we would make it at home. Luckily she is so awesome that we can go out to a fancy restaurant, go home and she can figure out how to make almost anything we have. This treat was served as an appetizer, but done correctly it can be a full meal at home. At Eleni’s it was  called Melitzanes Papoutzakia and it’s roasted eggplant stuffed with various vegitables (yellow squash, zucchini, peppers, onion, etc.) and covered in a rich red sauce and topped with feta. I don’t normally like eggplant, I used to hate it, but we’ve learned a few tricks that can make it awesome. Our version is slightly different in a few ways, (we grill it rather than roast and make it bigger) but it’s almost just as good. So here’s Allison’s recipe and photographic instructions:

Melitzanes Papoutzakia:

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1. 1 good sized eggplant (get a good one or two smaller ones)
2. 1/2 of a yellow squash
3. 1 small bell pepper (red or purple)
4. 1/2 zucchini
5. 1/4 Red Onion (optional)
6. 1 clove garlic
7. 4 tables spoons olive oil (this is up to personal preference)
8. Salt and Pepper (also up to personal discretion)

Directions:

1. Cut the Eggplant lengthwise so that you get two equal halves. Cut off the stem. If using two small eggplants, slice off about an inch of the top.
2. Cut the halves so they are a desirable size and keep the extra. Scoop out the insides of the eggplant with a spoon until you have a rind less than 1/2 inch in thickness, but not too thin.
3. Fully cover the rind of the Eggplant in a LOT of salt and let it sit for 45 minutes. This sucks the bitterness out of the plant, which will look like brown sweat. After 45 min., rinse the salt and brown sweat off of the Eggplant. At this point the eggplant should look like this:
4. Cut up the vegetables in thin slices and mix them into a bowl with the garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.
5. Fill the scooped out Eggplant with the vegetables and brush oil onto the remaining exposed rind.
6. Grill the Eggplant over medium to low heat until the skin and rind are soft (you can roast it in the oven @ 425 or broil until done). Be careful taking it off the grill, it can easily fall apart because it’s so amazingly soft.
7. Cover with a red sauce of your liking (some sort of Tomato based sauce) and put on the feta!
8. You notice that we also grilled the extra Eggplant. It can be covered in sauce and feta as well.
9. Feast! This is great with homemade Ciabatta bread (I’ll provide the recipe for that someday) and a crisp white wine from Greece (most good Greek      wine is white).                                             

Burnside Bridge Photo-Shoot

I love Portland’s bridges. It’s one of my favorite features of our luscious landscape. From the mystic St. Johns bridge to the steely steel bridge, these necessities of transportation highlight our cities aesthetic flare and beautiful water features. Last week I took my brother Jesse and a guy who used to be in my youth group, Amani, to the seedy underbelly of one of these bridges (it’s not actually seedy if you were worried). We were making the journey to take their senior pictures and so we headed to the west side of the Burnside Bridge.

I am by no means a professional photographer, it’s no more than a hobby for me, and a sporadic one at that. If you want to see some pro’s, check out some of my friends work: here is Fridtz Leidki, Jelani Memory, Patrick Wilson and Nate Watkins. I digress. The underside of the Burnside Bridge, where the famous skate park sits, is a bit of a Portland institution and it has that industrial aesthetic appeal. My lighting set up wasn’t good enough to do much directly under the bridge, so most of the shoot was just out from under it. Our plan was to head from there to a park but as we were leaving, a guy stopped us and invited us into his warehouse. Sketchy I know. He was a photographer as well and did maintenance on this fantastic space that was obviously being used for late night parties. The lighting was awesome in there, and he wanted us to take advantage. Here are some of the fruits of our labor:

Paul Reflects on Koran Burning

My good friend and fellow worker in the field has written some worthy thoughts on the suggestion of Mr. Terry Jones that we light the Koran on fire on Sept. 11. Here’s an excerpt: 

The recent fervor over “Dr.” Terry Jones and his Koran burning Florida congregation (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015763-10391695.html) has had me looking at my bookshelf. Specifically, staring at an honored spot in between William Faulkner and a paperback copy of Coraline, that has recently been the sitting-place of my translation of the Koran. It’s paperback, assiduously annotated by Marmaduke Pickthall, and if Pastor Jones is to be believed, out to destroy the world as we know it.

Here is a link to the full article.

Over the past week, hearing about the coming bon fire on the news, I realized that I have very little exposure to the Koran. I believe I will join Paul on Sept 11 in reading this text, for the love of Jesus.

Top Five: Breakfast Joints

This post is inspired by the punch in the gut I took on Labor Day after eating at the
24 Hour Hot Cake House on Powell. It was well worth it, but man. As we were standing in line to order our food, watching the cooks fry up a tasty heart attack with a side of diabetes, our friend Hannah mentioned that breakfast is her favorite meal to go out for. I think I agree.

Few people just go out to breakfast on an average day because they didn’t feel like cooking an actual meal. Going out to breakfast is set aside. It’s the meal to go out for on a holiday; like labor day, or a lazy saturday morning, or before church with some good friends, or when family is in town. And who can forget the first time they went out to breakfast in the middle of the night? Thank you Sharri’s. So, without further ado, I will share with you my top 5 favorite breakfast joints in Portland:

1. Cricket Cafe: Located on Belmont, just past the Pied Cow and Zupans headed west is the Cricket Cafe. These people do a straight up American breakfast, but with Portland flare. You step into a mid-sized cafe, an art-on-the-walls diner of sorts. Coffee: Stumptown. Pastries: Made from scratch on the premises. Omelette: stuffed with hash browns. Are you kidding me? The signature omelette at the Cricket cafe is the size of newborn, stuffed with hash browns and drizzled with sausage gravy. So good. But somehow, even with the enormity of the meal, you don’t leave feeling gross and sick vowing never to do that again. Your full, don’t get me wrong, but there isn’t grease in your pores. My top pick.
2. La Petite Provence: This place is french. The owners are actually from France. But despite this, the service is very good and the prices are extremely reasonable . I have not personally had a full breakfast here, but Allison tells me that it’s incroyable. I have had coffee and pastries however. I’m not sure who their roaster is but the coffee was very good. Encouraging, since coffee in France is not. Most of it is instant Nescafe, which isn’t terrible for what it is, but it’s just not real coffee. There are two Portland locations for your dining convenience: on Alberta and Division. Here is the menu at the division location if your thinking of a special morning out and curious about their fare.
3. The New Deal: This spot used to go by the name of the “Daily Cafe/Market.” It was sort of weird. Coffee shop meets corner market. Grab some breakfast, sit down in the 60′s style pewter colored chairs and indulge. On your way out grab a gallon of milk. It didn’t really work, so they took out the market and changed the name. Good move, because they were a much better cafe than market. So they added some booths and became the New Deal Cafe. May I recommend the mediterranean scramble? I am a sucker for feta cheese and kalamata olives. Great breakfast and great coffee. You can always count on Hair Bender being on “tap” at this spot. The location also makes this a good pick; it’s the only cafe around there and it doesn’t seem like a lot of people know about it. Check it out on 53rd and Halsey. Great service and quality baristas. If you’re not up for a full meal, just grab an Americano and get some work done on the wi-fi network. It’s a well-rounded location.
4. Pine State Biscuits: Allison and I first noticed this spot on Belmont because the line was always out the door. So we decided to try it. Then we found out why the line is always out the door. The Belmont location has basically no seating. This doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to the hungry Portlanders who simply must have a spicy biscuit with an egg on top. That’s what I had. As a friend of mine would often say, as one of his highest compliments, “they do not suck at making biscuits.” That’s probably why people will sit outside on the long bench, holding their plates in one hand and forking food into their mouthes with the other. Allison didn’t enjoy this spot quite as much as I did, noting that the biscuits are pretty spicy. It’s true, if your into the classic biscuit, this place might not be your first stop: consider the Cricket Cafe for a more traditional biscuit option. If the seating situation seems less than desirable to you, check out the Alberta Location, apparently there is a lot more seating.
5. 24 Hour Hot Cake House: Okay, so why is this actually making it on my Top Five? It is the quintessential breakfast joint. After Arron, Hannah, Allison and I finished our meal, we all looked as though we had just gone into a diabetic coma. Arron actually looked at me and asked me, semi-seriously, if I was diabetic because toward the end of the meal my affect went totally flat. But as we hoisted ourselves out of the booth made of classy 70′s style wood grain laminate it became clear we were all victims. Victims of what? The glory that is the American breakfast, just as it has always been. Greasy, huge and like a caloric drug of epic proportions. They must be making a fortune at this place, since the meals are mid priced ($8-10), though the ingredients are not (Franz white bread for toast), they obviously haven’t invested any cash in the interior and the line is out the door. The coffee burns in old school cafe pots you pour yourself and a man dressed from head to toe in tie-dye will bring you a box when you inevitably cannot finish your meal. It was exactly what we were going for, and we got it; boy did we get it.

I hope you explore what Portland has to offer in the way of breakfast. Whether it be the lighter french fare of La Petite Provence or the punch you in the intestine romp at 24 Hour Hot Cake House: just beware the consequences.