Waited the full 30 mins and went in RR to checksmall leakage on pantyremoved – all about 1/2 to 2/3
peed and didn’t have muchencouraged her to try again and be sure bladder fully emptypassed just a little more
Mom on her way back – so she’s planning to just wait and try OB in a couple of mins
Leonard Sweet’s The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion has helped many people give greater consideration to lessons the church can learn from Starbucks. In an interview about the book, Sweet addressed the need for the church to learn to be more EPIC:
Carpenter: In your book, you focus heavily on an acronym you have created called EPIC. It stands for Experiential, Participatory, Image Rich, and Connective. How does this connect a coffee shop with the Church?
Sweet: When you go to Starbucks you get an experience. You don’t pay money for a cup of coffee. I don’t go to Starbucks to say ‘give me a cup of coffee’ please. That is because there is no such thing as a general cup of coffee anymore. The modern world is shaped by that culture. Electronic culture creates interactive people. It creates participatory people. Nobody can take a General Foods approach anymore. It’s got to be customized. It’s got to be made personal just for you. This is the whole notion of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is that God became one of us and by one of us I mean not a generic one of us but an individual for all cultures, for all people. The idea of everything being participatory today is huge. As far as Image, the modern world is all about words. We learn how to critically interpret words. Advertisers don’t waste their time giving you words. They give you images. The cultural currency is images. Then why is the Church so silent? With Christianity, image is everything for us. The image is Jesus Christ. He is the image of God. That is who we should be lifting up.
In the three years since Sweet’s book has been published, I have come across many ideas on blogs and in articles seeking to help the church learn something from Starbucks. This week, I read a blog written by Adam J. Copeland, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hallcock, Minnesota. He suggests that many people find their local Starbucks a more welcoming environment than the local church:
Starbucks seeks to be a welcoming place where community can thrive . . . There are plenty of rituals in our congregations too, but many of them fail to welcome as well as some coffee shops. Do our churches judge visitors before they walk in the door? Do our congregations offer rituals that feed and connect to the present day or ones that merely echo past significance?
So What?
Your church can learn many lessons from Starbucks. Sweet suggests you might learn to be more EPIC. Copeland suggests you might learn to be more welcoming. What is the single greatest lesson your congregation could learn?
How EPIC (Experiential, Participatory, Image Rich, and Connective) is the culture in your community? How EPIC is the culture in your congregation? If your congregation is less EPIC than the surrounding community what steps might you take to be intentional about moving in that direction?
In comparison to the nearest Starbucks, how welcoming is your congregation to first time visitors? Repeat visitors? What lessons in hospitality can you learn from Starbucks?