“The Gospel According to Tim Hortons”

“The Gospel According to Tim Hortons”

A Sermon preached by
The Rev. Ross A. Lockhart

St. Matthew’s Church
15 April 2007

Scripture: Acts 4: 32-35

I heard a story this week of a couple who were sitting down to enjoy a cup of coffee in the afternoon when the husband took a sip and spit it out saying, “Yuck! This coffee tastes like dirt.” “That’s no surprise,” replied his wife without missing a beat, “it was ground this morning.”

Where would we be without coffee, eh? It’s hard to imagine a church without coffee either isn’t it? Bible Scholars suggest that coffee, first developed in China and chewed as a bean in Ethiopia was possibly introduced to Israel by the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon. It is quite likely in the days of the early church they were brewing up Starbuck’s special Jehovah Java blend in Jerusalem but I can’t say for sure whether the tradition of those little sandwiches without crusts had taken off yet!

Imagine that scene from today’s bible reading of the early church, gathered in someone’s home, praising God, testifying to the risen Christ and pooling their resources to help the poor and needy. The Bible says the early church community was of one heart and mind. Really? Well, we know that doesn’t last. If you had the opportunity to join with us at Eastminster Church at our last joint United Church Sunday evening worship services you heard me preach a sermon entitled, “The Worst Church Board Meeting Ever” where we explored the story that follows today’s reading of Ananias and Sapphira who cheat the early church and fall dead at a board meeting as a result! So while all was not well it was certainly a powerful time in our church history.

The church provided for its members what some call “the third place.” That is, beyond work and home, a place to gather where you have meaningful relationships (with God and brothers and sisters in Christ), share life, food and service to the community. The church today continues to be a “third place” between work and home but many of our members will recall a time years ago when the church played a more prominent role as the “third place.” Not just as a worshipping community but as a place for meals, sports, civic functions and so forth. Today, however, the church no longer plays that key role as the communities “third place” with the exception of rural Canadian contexts.

So, in the words of Cheers, where do folks go today “where everybody knows your name?” May I suggest the Holy Church of St. Timothy of All Hortons? Yes, Tim Horton’s does seem to be that “third place” for many people where they gather for community, relationships, the sacraments of Coffee and Tim Bits, where they feel a sense of belonging and identity. Now, I say this in a teasing manner (as you are used to now at St. Matt’s) because I too love Timmy’s. But would you not agree that many folks in our community today turn to Tim’s for a sense of belonging beyond home and work instead of the church?

I’ve been reading a really book this week that was a birthday gift from a friend of mine who is a pastor and is working on his Doctorate at Drew University in New Jersey. Drew’s professor of Evangelism is Leonard Sweet who recently published an interesting work entitled, The Gospel According to Starbucks. In this book Sweet suggests that Starbucks in America (and does throw a bone acknowledging that his Canadian friends always rave about Tim Hortons instead)provides the community and experience that many have formerly found in church. He suggests that we have much to learn from the coffeehouse context and offers as a guide the following description of the EPIC life:

Experiential
Participatory
Image-rich
Connecting

It certainly is easy to think of Tim Hortons as a “third place” that offers a unique experience. After all, imagine going to a Tim Hortons but not ordering a coffee or a donut. It wouldn’t be the same, would it?

Well, going to a church but not experiencing worship would be a little bit like walking into a Timmy’s and not ordering something to enjoy. Worship is the main gathering time for the community of faith and it provides the opportunity for people to experience God’s grace. During Holy Week we were treated to a great sermon by Rev. Maurice about his desire years ago not just to hear the stories of God but to encounter God himself. Maurice told the story of being caught outside in a Manitoba blizzard in the 1950s and in the midst of fear and panic very clearly heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am with you always.” This direct experience of Christ calmed him down, he went to sleep (which prairie kids like myself know you are not supposed to do in a snowbank) and woke in the hospital alive and just a little chilly. In fact, national newspapers picked up the story with headlines like “Rookie pastor gets cold feet.” Don’t we all yearn for a direct experience of God like Maurice had? As Leonard Sweet argues ultimately we must decide whether life is all about a God who is to be experienced or a belief to be remembered?

Tim Hortons as a third place offers you the opportunity to participate in a unique culture with its own rituals and language. Our church secretary Sandy told me the story this week of her husband Lance going into one of the first Tim’s to open in New York State. Lanced walked up to the counter and ordered a “double-double” and only received blank stares from the American teenagers across the counter. It required the Canadian training manger in the background to interpret for the young workers that this customer wanted a double cream/double sugar coffee! Who would have thought that Timmy’s has its own language. You can also participate by rolling up the rim to win as we saw in our Kingdom’s Kids children’s time this morning and for real die hards you can even buy stock in the public company.

The church as a third place offers its own way of participating including its own unique language of grace, peace, faith, hope and love. For newcomers to the church, and some long time members this requires some translation on our part. The church also offers people the opportunity to roll up their sleeves (instead of the rim) and serve the community and church from music to meals, study groups to service opportunities like our food bank ministry. Ultimately the most effective congregations I’ve witnessed throughout the years are the ones where individual members understand that they have a personal stake in the ministry of the church and are willing to invest in the future of the church. Needless to say Tim Hortons, like Starbucks, is image-rich. You can go into a Tim’s from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island and see the same symbols and rituals taking place. From a steeped tea in Cornerbrook to a Tim Bit box in Victoria there is consistency and a clear branding that takes place. The church has its own symbols, of course, and even the United Church has its own symbols. I was flipping through some church mail the other day and my daughter Emily grabbed a sheet, pointed at the United Church crest, and having seen the UCC crest on St. Matthew’s doors for most of her life smiled and said, “Daddy’s church.” We have symbols in common with other church’s don’t we? The Bible, the Communion Table, the cross, our beautiful stained glass windows all point towards the story of salvation we have to share.

I think the most important part of this EPIC life, however, is the last part – connection. Coffee gathers people in a way like no other activity. I was reading a quote this week that reminded me that people always say, “Let’s get together for coffee” rather than “Let’s stay apart for coffee” don’t they? Coffee brings folks together and all you have to do is walk into a Tim Hortons and see how people are drawn into conversation and fellowship over coffee

We know that the church exists to offer relationships to folks with God in Christ and one another. In order to help make this happen churches need reputations where strangers are welcomed and all can enter to find God and community. In our testimony time this morning we’ve been so blessed to hear from Margaret and Hal about how this church feels like home and its where they encounter the risen Christ through ordinary folks who gather week by week and work for the Kingdom of God. If you’re new here today and looking for a third place between work and home I’d like to personally invite you to join with us at St. Matthew’s during this Easter season. I believe this is the best place in our community for you to experience God’s grace, participate in the ministry of Christ, draw real strength from the symbols and images of faith, and connect with God and ordinary folks who are trying their best to live a faithful life that will make a difference in the world.

For this day, as we gather in the season of Easter:

The One who was raised to new life on the third day offers us this third place as a source of new life and blessing;

The one who rolled away the stone now invites to roll up our sleeves and win others to walk the path of peace and justice;

The one who defeated the brutal power of death now stands ready to brew up something strong and bold in your life this day.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Hearts & Mind BookNotes

The new Leonard Sweet book is so much fun, packed with so much interesting information---how does he find all these eccentric statistics and factoids, anyway? ---and important cultural analysis that I really, really want to tell you all about it. I understand that for some who do very heavy postmodern studies (pro or con) his popular level books aren’t exactly what you may need. Fine. But for most of us, these popular books are jam-packed with provocative sentences, winsome Christian insight, innovative connections between faith and culture, and a surprisingly fun reminder of core convictions of the Christian faith----stuff like our passion for Jesus, God’s ability to use our broken lives, the goodness of creation, the importance of beauty, the way God’s Spirit calls us to participate in authentic community, how love can triumph…basic good stuff. Sweet stuff, if I might say so.

To tell you about his new book The Gospel According To Starbucks I have to make a disclaimer or two. In fact, I will write about my critical concerns at length, below, after my enthusiastic promotional overview here. I do, in fact, have some concerns, but the main reason I want to note them is so that you don’t resist getting this book because you share these same concerns. Len once advised me, “Byron, you can do ministry in the world we’ve got, or the world you wished we had.” Uh-huh. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t be discerningly critical, but that we should at least look at things the way they are. He wasn’t trying to shut down my discernment of how best to engage the culture; he's very interested in that question—in fact, he edited a great book with five different participants in conversation (from Orthodox writer Frederica Mathews-Green to Mosaic dream-caster, Erwin Raphael McManus; from Straight Arrow Calvinist Michael Horton to emergent guru Brian McLaren. In the middle of them all is the ever-thoughtful and exceptionally balanced Andy Crouch, who at the time edited the supercool and very substantive re:generation quarterly. It is called The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Views.) So Sweet isn’t shallow or a one-note tune. And I suppose I think of that story now as my criticisms below are of that sort that authors find perplexing (“Why did he complain about what I didn’t say—or review the book I didn’t write” some authors understandably ask. “If you wanted to say all that about the topic, why didn’t you write such a book,” one author told me when I chided him for not doing the book I wished he had. Fair enough.) I am so enjoying this new Starbucks book that is so clever, passionate, and informative that I don’t want anybody to dismiss it casually. It is worth reading, even if you’ve heard Sweet’s song(s) before. Or even if you don’t like Starbucks.

The Gospel According To Starbucks: Living Life With a Grande Passion (Waterbrook; $13.99) is a fun and handsome paperback that basically uses Starbucks as an example of the postmodern shift to what Sweet has famously coined as EPIC. This stands for Experiential, Participatory, Image-Rich and Communal. And he makes the case pretty well, at least a superficial one, that Starbucks is a leading edge new business with an EPIC perspective, offering folks not so much a product, but an experience, not just an item you get, but one which becomes an inter-active experience, etc. This EPIC handle is really useful, and I think goes a long way in helping us appreciate very recent trends (like, say, Reality TV or E-bay.Or the legendary customer-loyality of Starbuck's patrons.)

As I’ve implied, it doesn’t really matter if you like Starbucks (more on that below) and it doesn’t even matter if you enjoy coffee. The point is that this one cultural phenomenon, an unavoidable one, has been nicely studied and plumbed as a case-in-point of the postmodern way of being in the world. He uses it as a preacher does, as a springboard. So, to be clear, the book is less about Starbucks and more about our EPIC culture (and how, sometimes, the church is anything but.)

For instance, in a truly brilliant section he reports on the decline of standard athletics and the rise of participatory sports. (Ahh, with more snowboards being bought than ball gloves, what are we to think about the great American pastime? Remember that guy—a huge Detroit baseball fan—who infamously leaned over the outfield wall and messed up an important play in a big play-off game for the Tigers? As only Sweet can and would, he makes this guy into an icon of participatory trends, saying that the writing is on the wall, so to speak. People don’t go to games just to sit and watch them any more (think of how tailgating has become such a big deal, or, better, how about this trend of painting your body? Whew!) That more kids play video game baseball than watch it is very important. (Sweet observes that the computer game industry is much larger than, say, Hollywood, yet there is little Christian analysis of it.) That NASCAR has mics inside the racecars so fans can "be there" becomes a matter of great cultural importance in Sweet's hands, and it is an important little section. If you don’t quite see where he is going with all this, you have to get this book. If you like these kind of discernment exercises about “reading” cultural texts (the decline of baseball and the rise of extreme sports, say) than you will just love this book, jam-packed as it is with episodes and examples of just such provocative stuff. Either way, I think it is a great little easy read, loaded with wit and insight.

Sweet is clearly on the pomo edge of things, as he has been for years, in part because he insists that Jesus Christ is not a proposition, but a Person, and our knowledge—yada, yada, yada, is the intimate Hebrew word of "knowing," remember---is a relationship, not mere intellectual assent. That writers and theologians as diverse as John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, or John Wesley and A.W. Tozer all said similar things may remind us that Sweet’s wholistic, post-Enlightenment epistemology isn’t heresy. It just seems a bit “out there” when he unpacks some of the implications of taking a multi-sensory, non-reductionistic, various-ways-of-knowing, whole-life approach to Christian discipleship, explaining it not only in terms of Bible texts, but by way of cultural icons like American Idol or iPods, or our love for the frappachino.

Sweet is a coffee fanatic, and he does love Starbucks. He has some good reflections on their in-house lingo, their excellence in barista training, their décor, their unorthodox marketing plans, and such. But, again, this book (it seems to me) isn’t really saying that the local church should mimic the franchise and do “Starbucks” services. Come on, left-brain literalists, give him a bit of credit for his imagery here…work with him, let the book tickle your fancy, your spiritual taste buds, your imagination. He isn’t saying we should do away with ordinary church and classic worship and have Zen meetings down at the espresso bar. But he is saying that Starbucks, and other emerging, new businesses, are onto something. They both reflect and contribute to the cultural zeitgeist, and we would be wise, at least, to pay attention. And, if Sweet is even partway right, we have some learning to do.

It isn’t the main point, hardly even a minor point. But I suppose it is all right to say it. At the very least, we can learn that a good quality coffee roast is important to many of us. Churches, fellowship groups and Christian retreat centers could serve up a better cup o' java, couldn't we? And that may, at least, be a start. Read this book and see what you think. As the subtitle puts it, he invites us to live with a grande passion. I love it!

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living Life With a Grande Passion Leonard Sweet (Waterbrook) $13.99
****

Okay, here are my concerns. I have already indicated that I don’t think this book is really about Starbucks, as such. It merely uses this popular business and it’s unique vibe as a springboard for his EPIC spiel, which I like. So whether or not you like Starbucks is really beside the point. One doesn’t really have to be married, you know, to appreciate a book on the “bride of Christ” imagery from the New Testament. One need not be a card-caring pacifist to study a good book on the Biblical principles of peacemaking, perhaps learning from contemporary examples of those who have worked for reconciliation. It doesn’t matter much whether one likes U2, say, or 24 or Tolkein. The books that have explored the spiritual themes in these works are fabulous and can be appreciated in their own right. And, if you don’t know much about those cultural artifacts, maybe that is all the more reason to read about them. So, again, I commend this book with vigor whether you like coffee or Starbucks or not.

But, Sweet does say some pretty positive things about the Starbucks corporation, their founder and their shops. He does hold up their coffee shops in an exemplary manner, indicating that we should celebrate their successes and affirm their insights and emulate their practices. And so I want to get on record a few quick (Light) Notes. (Sorry, little in-house Starbucks joke, there.)

First, while I do not boycott Starbucks myself, I appreciate that some think that we should only support independent shops. [Just today, I drove past a Starbucks while out of town to buy from an overpriced indie shop, as a matter of principle, and had a righteous, if sub-standard brew.] As one who waxes angrily eloquent at the mere mention of Amazon, and has testified in public hearings about the expansion of a local Wal-Mart, I understand deeply the concern about the invasion of out-of-town chains that may hurt smaller, local businesses. (You’ve seen You’ve Got Mail haven’t you?!) Big box stores are nearly iconic of modernist applications, though, with mass-marketed “product” selected by somebody somewhere else, based more on "numbers" than quality, displayed in slick, big, ways, with little earnest charm and sometimes, not even much knowledge or care. (Barnes and McNoble may have sophisticated literary selections, but I have had some very frustrating conversations with staff who, to say it nicely, don’t seem to be passionate about books or bookselling.) I am not sure that Starbucks is the same as Amazon (a faceless, mostly un-normative business, I think) or the big box retailers, since they do nurture a local touch, are passionate about their product, and, as Sweet observes, attempt to nurture participatory community in each locale. Still, I am very concerned that Sweet does not mention this concern, and wonder how I would feel about the book if I owned an indie coffee shop. Or, if he wrote a book about the (imagined) glories of Borders. I’d be irked. Again, The Gospel According to Starbucks is a call to rich and sensory and communally experienced faith, using the never-ending wit of Sweet’s over-caffeinated brain, by way of a quickie look at the cultural zeitgeist that the commercial success of a place like Starbucks signifies. It isn’t a study of the economics, stewardship, justice or appropriateness of national chain franchises entering local economies. So I’m willing to cut him a break on this and am happy to promote the book, as a way to reflect on that which the book is actually about---postmodern sensibilities, EPIC discipleship, full-on Christian passion and purpose. I think it is nonetheless an oversight that he did not at least approach this matter, and he should have at least broached the subject.

Secondly and closely related, is the whole movement that some have called the search for “third places.” I will blog, eventually, on the Great Good Place book, and my friend Larry Bourgeois, a renowned coffee Master himself, who has written about his coffee-house/meeting place in the sequel, Celebrating the Great Good Place, and on the need for real social places, safe havens that truly foster community and hold the possibility of cultural restoration. Sweet himself has written nicely about his vision of a “Soul Café” in his book with that title, and understands the need for retail places that promote conviviality, community, local responsibility. He used to run a retail shop that only sold products that had a "story" and were made by real folks, with some connection to somewhere particular. To the extent that Starbucks promotes their take-out attitude, paper cups and drive-through windows (!) it is a stretch to imagine that they are deepening real care, celebrating local culture or even helping people meet each other. Although Sweet’s call to connectedness and community in his EPIC acronym is right on, the reality is that Starbucks may be deconstructing local neighborhoods, dumbing down the practices of serious latte culture, and foisting on us an overpriced experience of haste, hurry, consumerism and disposability.

Thirdly, the fair-trade movement is one that Sweet has promoted, and he brings it up here. Earlier books addressed these fundamental justice concerns, even his great, older book on the Holy Spirit. His groundbreaking Soul Tsunami had excellent chapters on the green movement and global justice issues. However, there is some debate about how “fair-trade” Starbucks really is. They claim they pay above the industry average, and I have no reason to disbelieve them. They have in recent months increased some of their publicity (at least around here) about how they support bio-regions, and they do a bit of geographic teaching in some of their lovely brochures. Still, those that know me know that I’ve embarrassed myself and my baristas more than once with my complaint that we ought not to have to choose between helping the workers or helping the Earth. To have to choose between a bag of the earth-friendly shade grown, or a bag of the organic (good for consumer and farmer) or a bag of their fair-trade just isn’t right. Being such a large, lucrative, and influential staple of the worldwide coffee culture, they should be leading the way towards being entirely certified fair trade. We should be grateful that Sweet talks about all of this in the book, affirms Starbuck’s policy efforts and chides them (in more than one particularly pointed sentence) about not promoting the idea of fairly traded goods.

My favorite coffee bean company, by the way, is Peace Coffee, which we buy at the local Farmer’s Market. They specialize in dark roasts, and are all shade-grown, all organic and all certifiably fair trade. And they have that nifty, Biblical name. There are others, and we are grateful for missionaries, justice activists and denominational church offices that make fully fair trade certified blends available. Before you jump too fully on the Starbucks train, check out other local, vibrant, indigenous shops, working with them to offer fairly-traded products to your locale.

My favorite coffee bean company, by the way, is Peace Coffee, which we buy at the local Farmer’s Market. They specialize in dark roasts, and are all shade-grown, all organic and all certifiably fair trade. And they have that nifty, Biblical name. There are others, and we are grateful for missionaries, justice activists and denominational church offices that make fully fair trade certified blends available. Before you jump too fully on the Starbucks train, check out other local, vibrant, indigenous shops, working with them to offer fairly-traded products to your locale.

One of the best brief articles, with helpful resources on the agricultural impact of coffee growing, see this from our friends at Catapult, “Fair-Trade Coffee Is For the Birds”

So, having hopefully “head off at the pass” any closed-minded bias against my suggestion that you should read a book with Starbucks in the title, duly noting these important concerns, we invite you to think more deeply about your own economic patterns and purchasing choices, and buy The Gospel According to Starbucks from some independently owned, personally-caring booksellers you may happen to know. We think it will be a fun book for small groups or book clubs and will help you not only deepen your cultural awareness, but may help you embrace an EPIC faith in the One who is the Living Truth. Which is Len’s biggest passion, giving folks a taste of the goodness of the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Hearts & Minds BookNotes
annotations, blurbs and ruminations
to enlarge the heart & stimulate the mind
and to happily generate mail order business for Hearts & Minds bookstore
About Me

Name: Byron K. Borger
Location: Dallastown, PA
My lovely wife Beth and I own and operate--proprietors makes us sound more classy than we really are--a cluttered, diverse and independent bookstore in Central Pennsylvania. After well over 20 years, we are still not sure what to say when people ask if our shop is a "Christian bookstore." I do a monthly book review column over at our website; we hope that these new blogged bits will afford friends and customers the chance to see other books I happen to be reading, wishing to read, pretending that I read or at least believe that others should, if not read, know about. We have three children, attend a Presbyterian church in York, PA and have no hobbies.
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Author at DePauw Oct. 9

From Hoosier United Methodists Together, September 2007

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion author Leonard Sweet will speak at DePauw University's Mendenhall Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 7:30 p.m. A 5:30 p.m. meal will be served as well.

For further information, contact Lesley Lytle at The Office of Spiritual Life at marjorielytle@depauw.edu.

Sweet is founder and president of Spirit Venture Ministries and serves as the E. Stanley Jones professor of evangelism at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, N.J.

Faith must be more practice than dogma

From Hoosier United Methodists Together, September 2007

Starbucks parity a good wake-up call but not total Gospel
By Daniel R. Gangler

Christian faith in 21st century North America must be more practice and experience than dogma and statements of belief.

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion by Leonard Sweet (Water Brook Press 2007) is a good reality check, but not total Gospel, for historic mainline Protestant churches in a creative comparison with Starbucks - the coffee people.

Sweet has creatively woven his E.P.I.C. theme, introduced nearly a decade ago, comparing it with the successful and growing Starbucks chain of coffee houses and products. Sweet postulates that the church can be revived by giving her members a similar experience, which he terms E.P.I.C. spirituality. E-P-I-C is the acronym for Experience - Participatory - Image-rich - Connecting.

This parity is written on the premise that one book doesn't stand in line at Starbuck for a four buck cup of coffee, but for the coffeehouse experience gendered by one of the most successful companies in America. Starbucks not only understands culture, but also is beginning to shape part of American culture.

Sweet's writing is light, light hearted and filled with helpful sidebars which contribute to thought but not necessarily to his theme. It's a fast and easy read but one readers will want to return to read again or share with a friend or colleague.

I agree with Bishop Mike Coyner wanting Sweet's book in the Bishop's Bundle of Books as one of five books for area-wide discussion. Of the five, it was the one that caught my attention first. Maybe it's because I enjoy Starbucks, but also because I have experienced Sweet in person and heard his EPIC thesis in 2000 at a conference of United Methodist communicators.

For pastors, I hope the Starbucks's gospel will awaken the passion for Christ's Gospel in the life of their congregations. For laity, this book will illustrate, with the Starbuck's parity, that Christian faith in 21st century North America must be viewed with more practice and experience than dogma and statements of belief. Knowing the Gospel theologically is one thing, but living out the Gospel in daily life becomes a transforming experience for both believers and the society in which they live.

Both Starbucks and the church are about community. Both have their own languages, decor and mannerisms. Both are learned experiences. Both need to be inviting to exist and grow.
Putting Sweet into our own context as United Methodists, the church needs to be passionate and renewing with enriching experiences to the extent that we, as its members, are compelled to share our faith with all within and beyond the church. Our passion is driven through an abiding relationship with the Creator and Savior of the world experienced in our relationship with others.

The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion is an important read for both clergy and laity especially as Hoosier United Methodists imagine a new conference for the 21st century.