Doing Coffee

by Pastor Wade

For those of you who regularly get our Purpose Driven e-mail devotions, you probably saw this one and thought that I would like it. I certainly did…so I saved it to share again, and with those of you who don’t get these. Enjoy…

Turning Starbucks into St. Arbucks by John Fischer
What do St. Arbucks, St. Peets, St. Tully’s, St. Dietrich’s, and St. Caribou all have in common? They are coffee bars that have been turned into cathedrals of sorts - places where people meet to do church. That’s “doing” church as opposed to “being” the church. The Church is composed of all followers of Christ all over the globe. “Doing church” is what happens when a small group of these followers (including some who are thinking about following) gather to talk, pray, study, worship, and seek God together. It can happen with as few as two people, and it can happen anywhere and any time - in people’s homes, in restaurants, and increasingly in coffee houses.
There has been a proliferation of coffee bars springing up all over the country lately. It seems that Americans are finding out what Europeans have known for a long time, that a place can survive on serving coffee alone, because what is really being served is not just coffee, but the experience of drinking it with someone. Ever since this dark brew has been perfected, people have been meeting over coffee for fellowship and stimulating conversation. Bars are for escaping reality. Coffee bars are for getting into reality and extracting something worthwhile from it. (I really like that!!)

One reader wrote to me about how coffee had become something that opened up a deeper dimension between her and her father. In essence, her dad became her friend over coffee. And over the years after the death of his wife and her mother, he would often call and ask, “Is the coffee on?” She recalls, “There was nothing in my life at that moment that was more important than one more cup of coffee with my dad. We talked over coffee about the good times, the awful times, the heartbreak in life, and the joy that words could not describe.
“Today, I still drink coffee, and I drink it with friends, but many times I sit in the evening with a cup (in the den, on the porch, or on a swing) and remember those special moments between father and daughter, where none of life’s problems didn’t have a solution.”
Did coffee do that? Of course not, but it helped provide the catalyst for it to happen. I often think that the current rise of coffee bistros in cities, suburbs, and public places is due in part to the rapid pace of our lives and the growing need we have to stop and reflect over what we are doing, where we are going, and what we are here for. Coffee is simply an excuse for lots of things to happen, one of which is doing church. (Amen! Amen!) Maybe it’s time to ring someone up and ask if the coffee’s on. And if it’s not, you can always meet somewhere where it always is.

Thanks, John. I may need to switch to more decaf, but the “reflection” with each other will still be the same.

Sipping the joy of life in Christ,

Pastor Wade

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