So Pastor Pat has been working for the past couple of months on having Starbucks coffee available on Sunday mornings for people to enjoy before our weekly worship gathering. Last week at our Easter gathering, we debuted the Starbucks coffee. A lot of folks liked it, but most of the older folks complained that it was too strong (never mind that the folks that made it had already made it weaker than the directions called for).

So this week, they made it even weaker. When I poured my coffee, it looked like hot tea. It was a pretty big cup of coffee, but two creamers was too much.

I heard from several people, who complained about last week's coffee, say how this week's coffee was just right. These same people will tell you that they hate Starbucks.

The first, and most obvious point, is that if we're going to serve Starbucks coffee, and make it a point to tell people that it's Starbucks coffee (we have little signs up around the coffee station), then it sure better taste like Starbucks coffee.

So picture this hypothetical situation: a visiting couple, in their mid-twenties, come to check out our church. Cool, Starbucks coffee, they think, and they get a cup. Then it tastes awful to them. Is this coffee for us, or for them?

Isn't this a thing our churches our guilty of, across the board? We don't want the music too loud. We don't want the environment too casual. We don't want the coffee too strong. We're constantly thinking about what we want out of church, what is safe for us.

We should be basing more of our decisions on a vision of who God is calling us to reach. Instead, what we have our people who don't understand the culture around us (I hate Starbucks) making decisions that affect the way we connect with the culture around us (that coffee is too strong, let's just make it weaker).

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