Churches, Change, and Growth (Part 2)

By Kent E. Fillinger

Starbucks was founded in 1971 to sell high-quality coffee beans and coffee equipment; it did not sell its first cup of coffee until 1984. Today, Starbucks has more than 11,000 locations in 37 countries and expects to open 1,800 additional locations this year. Its goal is to operate 30,000 locations, half of them outside the United States. There is even a Starbucks at the Great Wall of China and in Beijing”s Forbidden City.

Starbucks both shapes cultural patterns and symbolizes our changing culture. Just ask historian Bryant Simon, a professor at Temple University, who visited 300 Starbucks in six countries to research his forthcoming book, Consuming Starbucks. Simon is one of several academics studying how our 21st century café culture is rapidly spreading around the world.

Starbucks “fills some kind of deep desire for connection with other people,” Simon said. “Starbucks succeeds by “˜selling comfort” in an anonymous, often dislocating world. . . . There”s a deep sense of unpredictability in the modern world, and what Starbucks provides a lot of people is predictability”¹

How has Starbucks done this? And what can churches learn from how Starbucks prepares for its customers? The answer is in three concepts: community, consistency, and customization.

Community

Starbucks has created an inviting atmosphere where customers feel welcome to stay as long as they like, meet friends, and coexist with strangers in an environment that feels intimate. As others have noted, Starbucks creates a “third place”””not home, not work, but a comfortable spot to congregate or relax.

Starbucks Coffee Company Chairman Howard Schultz said, “I think the heart of the idea was building a sense of community in our stores. . . . Starbucks really has become this place between home and work. I think we all have a need for human connection.”²

Columnist Kathleen Parker identified the same reality. “Starbucks is a metaphor for something that went missing in the culture and that the Seattle-based company seems to have found.” She said, “More than a jolt, they like human community. In an increasingly sterile, impersonal, often-hostile, road-rage, broken-family society, people yearn for security, warmth, and human connection. A few round tables and chairs offer sanctuary and the possibility of camaraderie.”

Parker then made an amazing spiritual analogy. “The phenomenon of Starbucks is secular communion. Scones and coffee, after all, aren”t so far removed from the ritualized consumption of grape juice and bread; they just taste better.”

Parker concluded, “The lesson isn”t that everyone needs to drink more coffee, or if they do, that it necessarily be Starbucks. . . . But what”s clear is that if you build places where human beings feel welcome to sit a spell, to talk and share a cup of coffee, they will come.”³

Many years ago, when former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn learned he had terminal cancer, he shocked everyone when he announced he was going back to his small town of Bonham, Texas. People said, “They have the finest facilities in Washington, D.C., why go back to that little town?”

Rayburn responded, “Because in Bonham, Texas, they know if you”re sick and they care when you die.”

We desire community. We seek family. The local church must dedicate itself to being that “third place” where people come and are accepted just as they are.

Part of achieving this involves creating physical environments where people will feel welcome to cultivate community on their own terms. North Point Community Church understands this idea. When I visited a few years ago, I was surprised and excited to find about a dozen rooms for adults that looked and felt like someone”s family room. Each room had its own design and decorations, comfortable sofas, and inviting colors. When the doors were closed, it felt as if you were relaxing in someone”s house and the atmosphere was great for initiating community.

Consistency

Starbucks also strives for consistency in terms of excellent coffee and customer experience.

Starbucks management looked upon each store as a billboard for the company and as a contributor to building the company”s brand and image. Each detail was scrutinized to enhance the mood and ambience of the store, to make sure everything signaled “best of class” and that it reflected the personality of the community and the neighborhood. The thesis was “Everything matters.” The company went to great lengths to make sure the store fixtures, the merchandise displays, the colors, the artwork, the banners, the music, and the aromas all blended to create a consistent, inviting, stimulating environment that evoked the romance of coffee, that signaled the company”s passion for coffee, and that rewarded customers with ceremony, stories, and surprise.⁴

Harvey S. Firestone said, “Success is the sum of details.” Starbucks is successful partially because it understands the need for intentional, focused planning that incorporates every possible detail of the customer”s visit. The result is consistency that brings customers back.

Churches also must give greater attention to the details of the total church experience for new guests. What does a first-time guest feel from the moment he drives into the parking lot until he leaves to go home? What impression do you make with your parking lot, lawn, landscape, signage, and building? What message do you convey inside through artwork, banners, music, aromas, carpet, signage, and most importantly, the people who greet the guests?

Studies show that guests decide within the first two minutes of entering your facility whether they will return. Giving attention to the worship package, creative elements, and the message are essential, but if the time from the parking lot to the pew is ignored, your efforts may be hopeless. Sanford I. Weill explained, “Details create the big picture.”

Customization

In an out-of-control world, people feel a sense of stability when they can order a “Half-caf, triple venti, sugar-free vanilla, soy, extra hot, upside down, with whip, extra caramel, Caramel Macchiato.” The Starbucks customer chooses the experience she will enjoy. She can create something personal and new every time. As one barista I know said, “The possibilities are endless!”

Contrast this degree of customization with the church I served during my college ministry internship more than a decade ago. It had an adult Sunday school class that had been studying the same book of the Bible every Sunday for two years. Today, when my Bible study group attempts a study that lasts more than eight weeks, people start to get antsy and lose their focus.

Reggie McNeal said, “In the emerging world learners will decide what they want to learn, when they want to learn, and how they will learn (online, face-to-face, text, project, and so on).”⁵ This trend mirrors the customization available to customers at Starbucks.

To engage adults in spiritual formation, churches must begin to think beyond a church classroom on Sunday mornings and expand the number of learning channels available. There need to be multiple venues and the potential to create a customized spiritual growth plan through online and face-to-face learning encounters.

Churches also need to cultivate numerous short-term growth opportunities that enable people to share their life story with others. Consistently introducing four- to six-week, life-driven studies engages new people and enhances their spiritual formation. Personal experience has demonstrated the strong reluctance of new people to participate in classes or groups that do not have a definite start and end date. Constantly launching new learning portals is vital, because any class or group that is more than 6 to 12 months old appears to be a “closed” group to new people.

Your Next Leadership Meeting

I encourage you and your leadership team to hold your next meeting at your local Starbucks. Soak in the sights and sounds of the environment. Use the time together to observe the scenery and dream about future ministry initiatives for your church that will cultivate community, strengthen consistency, and introduce customization for people who have yet to connect with Jesus and each other.

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¹ “Starbucks brewing up taste of culture””daily,” Jill Lawless, The Indianapolis Star, 18 April 2006, A2.

² “Northside coffee outlet fulfills vision of giving back,” Catherine Rentz Pernot, The Indianapolis Star, 26 July 2005, C1.

³ “Never alone at Starbucks,” The Indianapolis Star, 9 September 2005, A12.

⁴ “Starbucks Corporation,” Arthur A. Thompson and John E. Gamble, 1999, www.mhhe.com/business/management/thompson/11e/case/starbucks-2.html.

⁵ The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, 2003), 84, 85.

Next Week: What churches can learn from grocery stores.

Kent Fillinger is president of 3:STRANDS Consulting in Indianapolis, Indiana.