Center

For nearly 20 years, Starbuck’s has become the local community center for neighborhoods in cities all across the country. Their fresh brew, calming yet fashionable interior design, and warm baristas have drawn and kept customers for years.

Customers come in to Starbuck’s to have intimate conversations, read, play games, conduct meetings, study, relax, work…and oh yeah, drink coffee.

Starbuck’s has somehow created an atmosphere where people feel comfortable, safe, and at home. I’ve heard people have very intense personal conversations and conduct very serious business meetings all while at Starbuck’s with strangers sitting all around them. How does Starbuck’s pull this off at a coffee shop when some people can’t even pull that off in their own home?

And while I don’t have the answers, I want to know how this could be implemented at a church. I would love to see the Church (its buildings and its people) become neighborhood community centers.

Imagine people swarming to a church to have serious conversations, conduct business, meet new people, listen to music, study, write, and play games with others from their community regardless of the religious or spiritual differences. Yeah, there could be coffee too.

But coffee is not the common thread in the Starbuck’s experience. In fact, I’m not really even sure what is.

The thing the Church would have as the common thread would be the grace, love, and hope of Jesus. People would come in for the same reasons people come in to Starbuck’s: community. But people would hopefully come out having experienced Jesus in some way- just as someone cannot come out of Starbuck’s without experiencing coffee in some way.

The only hurdle for the Church to jump over is the Church. People are happy to come in to Starbuck’s under the banner of coffee, but people at usually not happy to come into the Church under the banner of Jesus because the Church has done such a poor job of being His Body and representing Him well.

So let us dream up ways for the Church to become a neighborhood community center just as Starbuck’s has. Let us think of new and exciting ways for the community to feel comfortable walking into our doors so that they can encounter Jesus.

Do I have the answers? No. But I can dream.