Less than 20 dB

Unless you're better than me, you've probably heard that Starbucks will be closing their doors for three hours in a move to save their coffee soul.

It's true.

I like that idea. I like that Howard Schultz, back in the saddle, after having done more than possibly anyone other than Mr. Coffee to make coffee so ubiquitous worries that he has commodified the experience. I know it's hard to tell when I'm being ionic, or even ironic, (even I can't tell sometimes, thank God~ for my irony mark) but I really do like that kind of self-awareness.

It's rare anywhere and he's part of the machine.

My blood used to oil parts of that machine. Regular readers of this blog may want to reconsider their existence, and may also remember I was a Starbucks barrista.

Tooting my own horn, I was the kind of barrista that would get us a five star snapshot. Now to sound like a "It Was Good, But You Should've Seen It With the Broadway Cast" I stopped frequenting Starbucks when they started selling hot sandwiches. That was sort of the last straw in a change that I felt was occurring while I still worked their. It was a change marked by a number of things- no more cinnamon twists, larger retail spots, more and more cross marketing, hot sandwiches.

I know Starbucks is a global corporation so it's silly to think of them as a small neighborhood business, but as far as global corporations go, it was like a small neighborhood business. It lost some of that with these changes. I think Howard saw that that was disappearing.

So they're closing to maybe find what was lost. Like I said, I like that. Oh I know it's just a gimmick. But it's an important gimmick. At least, it is in the life of Starbucks.

I probably won't go back. I've found a new place. But I think it is none the less important for Starbucks to do this.

Now, I'm going to take it too far. But I'm going to take it too far because so many church leaders stupidly think churches should be run like businesses. I don't always know what that means, though it generally corresponds to a sense of masturbatory, ego feeding, greatness- becoming bigger to become bigger.

What if churches tried that? I don't mean self-affirming back-slapping. That is already tried a-plenty. What if there was the opportunity to stop what one does to question what one does? What would one find?

I know that's crazy talk. There couldn't possibly be anyway to stop what we do as churches to be confronted with something beyond us~