I’ve recently joined Starbucks. A corporate monster that sells over priced coffee I hear you cry. Maybe. But one thing has real struck me whilst learning more about this coffee giant. Their values are pretty sound.

In my pursuit to settle in a Church I have found it interesting that a profit making business has got a lot of things right, if the church shared and executed some of the same values I think they could be a lot more successful at reaching this generation. For example, in October I attended the Starbucks Leadership conference and without giving away Starbucks secrets the main focus was on a set of 5 behaviours that the stores should and mainly are demonstrating. “Be welcoming, be genuine, be knowledgeable, be considerate and be involved” Now I could quite easily take each of these, match them with scripture and try and demonstrate how a Church displaying the same behaviours wouldn’t be doing bad job.

But I won’t bore you. Let me just mention the first “be welcoming, offer everyone a sense of belonging” Is it just me or is Church often (not always) the most unfriendly place you could go. Over the last 2 years is has been my experience that when you attend church you can be fortunate if anyone smiles at you, comes and says hello or really greats you in much of a way that makes you feel good. Now I am as guilty as most but surly this is shocking? I guess in an ideal world it should in fact be the complete opposite, in my opinion surely church should be the one place where you are blown away by warmth and attention.

This has really challenged me lately, particularly being on the other side of the fence where I am the new guy. Admittedly I get paid at work to make people feel welcome as they enter our store. I’m aiming to give them a sense of belonging so that they want to come back, not a bad idea for a church, what do you think?