After that, I spent some time watching the baristas working behind the counter. They greeted people, took orders with a smiling face and even a few recommendations. They were patient even as customers were often not. They called out customer’s names when orders were ready. Kids sometimes got a little picture drawn on their cups.
On this particular day, many of the employees were wearing company uniforms that sported phrases and graphics that supported the LGBTQ community.
When repeat customers would come in they were greeted by name. Sometimes ongoing conversations would pick up where, apparently, they had left off. There were no deep, close relationships being fostered that I could see, but there was something inviting, friendly, and welcoming.
Comparing church and coffee shops is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. The Church is a community of disciples who follow the way of Jesus together and coffee places are places of business seeking to sell a product to their customers and maximize profits.
But I think I get it. Church, for so many people, does not feel like a safe place. Church can be seen as a place of judgment; a club that tells you if you are in or out, accepted or not, living your life the way you should or wasting it. Church demands conformity and is seemingly not open for the new or the different, whereas coffee shops will take anyone and everyone and seek to sell them a cup of coffee. Coffee shops will change and adapt to cater to the customer if the customers stop coming. Coffee shops, in a sense, listen to their customers, their needs and their wants. And they’ll work to accommodate where necessary. Customer satisfaction = profit.
So, in a sense, there are those who feel like they get more ‘bang for their buck’ from their morning coffee experience than they do the church.
This is probably not how most of us, who are reading this article, experience church life, but it has been the experience of many of those who have left the church, who stay away from it, and to whom we might hope to reach out.
I’ve used this analogy more than once, but people see churches like families – OTHER people’s families. Coming into another person’s family is no easy feat. Families seem to be locked in stone, established, with little room for new folks to join in. The rituals and the local traditions, the ‘way we’ve always done’ things, which orient life and ministry together can seem like impenetrable walls that limit participation unless someone is absolutely willing to conform wholesale. This is especially true for anyone new to church.
So my question for us to ponder this Lenten season, a season of reflection, repentance, and submitting our lives to God, is a strange one:
What might we, as church, learn from Starbucks?
I know...it sounds ludicrous. Bear with me.
It doesn’t sound like a holy, Lenten question, does it? But then again, a deep reflection of our individual lives of discipleship and our church’s life and ministry inevitably takes us to our mission from Jesus: to build up the body of Christ and to share the good news in all nations, bringing people to Christ, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and making disciples. And what we’ve seen in the last four decades in the U.S. is a Church that has struggled to live into its mission, not clear how to accomplish this anymore. The mission is sound, clear, and a fundamental part of our identity, but the details for HOW we live it out in this modern context have been the contemporary Church’s Achilles heel.
There are denominations and churches that have seemed to talk away the challenge by simply confessing, “well mission isn’t all about numbers anyway,” or simply professing, “this is simply a time of reformation and God is renewing the church so we should just keep doing what we’re doing.” I think these are faithful professions. Mission isn’t all about numbers. And God is always renewing God’s church. But these have also been used as excuses for doing what always has been done, for avoiding any and all change, and for kicking the can down the road.
So when the church seems to have no answers, and has faithfully struggled over the years to live out its mission, perhaps turning to an unlikely place to listen for God’s wisdom might not be so far- fetched. Maybe the question, ‘What might we learn from Starbucks?’ is not so strange after all.
What might we learn about care, about being flexible, about allowing ourselves to be reformed in pursuit of our mission from God? We have the greatest news in the cosmos, (the product we cannot help but share with the world); now how do we present it, distribute it, listen to our ‘customers’ for feedback about it, and change things up when necessary? When people walk into our doors, how do they immediately feel welcomed, valued, and heard? How do we put the fine touches on kindness and hospitality in a genuine, authentic way?
And the question is an individual one too. What can I do? What can I learn from the baristas at Starbucks?
No, all the answers cannot be found in the business model of a coffee conglomerate in the throes of a free market capitalist system that is just as flawed as any system, but perhaps the church should be reminded again and again that God speaks in many different places, through many different peoples, and in many different ways, and we should always be on the lookout, never locked into expecting God’s guidance in one particular way.
Blessings to you, dear saints, in this season of reflection.
With Care,
Adam
