Comments on: The Church of Starbucks

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:46:44 +0000

jesus threw out the money changers , what do you think your doing now , letting them back in.
Buying and selling in the church ,the world is truly lost , and you the illuminate will win for a short time , but you know your end……….

By: The Lowdown

The Lowdown — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 04:07:22 +0000

[...] Read an insightful blog post about where the Church and Starbucks cross paths. [...]

By: Danny Slavich

Danny Slavich — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:41:37 +0000

As a Starbucks “partner”, I think that another thing that Starbucks demonstrates is the importance of repeated interaction. There are a dozen or more regular Starbucks customers at my store, who I’ve gotten know solely through bried, but repeated and consistent interaction. These are people I would stop in the street and talk to, and would consider them to be friends.

By: DJ Cimino

DJ Cimino — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0000

Good stuff to think about. btw, I was about 20 cents short the other day at Starbucks and the nice man on the other side of the counter said “don’t worry about it”, and I was assured that all was well. On the other hand I got the impression a few months ago that I really bothered someone by taking their “seat” when visiting a church while out of town. The somewhat non-connecting point is this - how many times do the sinners feel more welcomed at Starbucks than in a church that is supposed to be full of grace (and truth) just like our Savior?

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:57:55 +0000

This raised two questions for me.

1) Given the tension between identity (otherness) and being welcoming, how can we know if we are getting things out of balance?

For instance, many churches start with the premise that since our culture likes X (Starbucks, entertainment, rock concerts, etc.), the key to making people feel welcome is how successfully we can replicate the environment of X in our worship. Is this something we should strive against? Is there any reason to avoid replicating X in our extra-curricular times, such as a coffee time or a youth group?

2) It seems to me that the otherness of Starbucks culture is mostly a non-threatening reflection of their brand. It’s no skin of my nose to think of the coffee guy as a Barista. However, I wonder if some rightful aspects of the church’s otherness might be threatening to the outsider. I want to limit the scope of that question to the biblical otherness, not the otherness that is rooted in cultural quirks that we’ve developed.

For example, a cultural quirk might be that the pastor must say “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” or “Can I get an amen?” 20 times in a sermon. Whereas a reflection of biblical otherness is that a person would preach from an inspired text in the first place. Another one would be the act of communion, bread and wine as body and blood. That’s very “other” if we take a step back to think about it.

It seems like you’re warning against toning down the rightful otherness, even though it may be our instinct. I think it’s sometimes tough for us to clearly distinguish between that otherness and the otherness we’ve imported.

By: Ched

Ched — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:12:26 +0000

I’m becoming convinced that part of what the success of Starbucks teaches us is that there is a balance between being “other” and welcoming.

I Like this connection.