What We Can Learn from Starbucks About Evangelism

Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz is a fantastic book. Schultz is the founder of Starbucks as we know it today. Although he came on after Starbucks had already been a coffee bean seller, he envisioned and propelled Starbucks in much the same way as Walt Disney imagined Disney Land.

The bottom line of Starbucks is undeniably it's passion for great coffee.  

It may be introducing more and more items to the menu and trying to take on giants like McDonalds, but it's DNA is good coffee. 

A recent study was done by Consumer's Reports on the world's best coffee, and supposedly Starbucks was way down on the list, but I'm a little skeptical.  First off, they were testing ground coffee, which right away sets off an alarm - fresh coffee beans is the best and only best way to do great coffee.  Pre-ground automatically decreases the quality of coffee.  Next, who are these randomly chosen coffee taste testers?  

Whether you like Starbucks or not, I sense that a lesson is to be learned here for the Church.  

In the same way as Starbucks, we have many frills and whistles, but the core attraction of the Church, the mainstay if you will, will always be the preaching of the gospel.  

Many churches this week are gearing up for big Easter egg hunts, and throughout the year there are all kinds of possible outreach opportunities, but the good stuff, the core of who we are, like Starbucks in their good coffee, is in the sometimes seeming "foolishness of preaching" (1 Cor. 1:21).

Otherwise, we are nothing more than a steamer.