Food for the journey.

Worried about the state of the church? Stop a minute outside a parish hall--and listen.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT A CHURCH HALL. Some may be dowdy, some dank. Some are gracious spaces, and some are swank. Some are furnished like corporate boardrooms, others boast rickety folding chairs set out on scuffed tile floors.

It doesn't matter. There's something wondrous about such meeting halls, with their lingering aroma of strong coffee and industrial-strength cleaning solutions. Jesus promised, "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there." How much more special can you get?

Sometimes it's hard to recognize Jesus' presence: when tempers flare at a parish council meeting and angry words are tossed about like hand grenades. Or when whispered gossip cuts down an outcast as sure as sniper fire. Or when a hall goes silent for lack of imagination or reason to meet.

But most parish halls are filled often with voices and breath and cooking and laughter. One of my earliest religious memories is of helping my dad prepare for the annual Holy Name Society pancake breakfast. The men would handle the heavy tables, setting them end-to-end the length of the hall. Kids would race to drag the folding chairs and slide them in place. Setting up took all Saturday afternoon. And as dusk approached, we'd click the lights off on long silent rows of tables, with butcher paper spread across them, crisp and spotless as a bride's dress.

The next morning after the 9:30 Mass the place was riotous joy, brimming with the smell of the grill and the sound of laughter and talk. Men of the parish, aprons wrapped around their girth, jimmied their way between packed rows of breakfasters, dishing out second helpings of sausage and steaming hotcakes onto outstretched plates. Sunday morning's Communion rite extended over coffee and conversation.

Then, as now, the church faced many real challenges. That pancake breakfast took place on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, which introduced much-needed reform and renewal. The need for reform and renewal continues. Today we heat stories of declining attendance at weekend Masses. Many decry the lack of effective religious formation so many of today's young adults suffered. Inner-city schools and churches are closing or financially threatened. And the demographic trends of priests and nuns portend an implosion that will rock the church in ways most rank-and-file Catholics are just now beginning to realize--but that overworked parish priests and religious have been bearing for years. These are real challenges that can give you pause.

But on any given night, lights glow in parish halls and meeting rooms across the country. Men and women gather to take up and carry out the mission of the church. Long-married couples counsel newly engaged couples on how to discover the graces in the sacrament of marriage. Deacons help expecting parents prepare to welcome a newborn into their lives and into the parish community. RCIA candidates, many from the unfairly maligned Generation X, gather in church halls, perhaps nervously at first, wondering what they're getting themselves into, and later jubilantly when they celebrate with their fellow parishioners their full welcome as members of the Body of Christ.

In church halls across the country, worried parents review budgets and plan fundraisers and deliberate how best to keep their schools open. Remarkably often they find a way. Some church halls get transformed nightly into dormitories where homeless men, women, or children seek sanctuary. Church halls become soup kitchens, poverty law clinics, English-as-a-Second-Language classrooms, day care centers, AA meetings, or neutral zones where gang members reflect and pray. Wherever two or three are gathered in my name....

As we Catholics have grown out of our insularity during the past century, the notion of church halls has expanded, too. Might not the corporate lunchroom where the Business Executives for Economic Justice meet to discuss ethical questions--such as hiring and firing or paying a living wage-be considered a proper extension of the parish hall? And isn't the public foyer--where an ecumenical, church-based community group gathers, preparing for a confrontation with the city council--a proper extension of the church hall? For what is its purpose if not to send us forth to live the gospel in the world?

When morose thoughts about the future of the church threaten, stop a minute outside a parish hall. Listen to the raucous sounds of life within. The people of God are alive and well. More pancakes, anyone?

TOM MCGRATH, executive editor of U.S. CATHOLIC magazine.