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Big
Box or Specialty Store?
By
Rick Presley
A
lot of the emergent discussion online hasn’t
progressed much past whining about what’s wrong with
the modern church and where we got off track. Typical
whipping boys include church marketing, seeker
sensitive, Willowcreek, Saddleback and all the rest. You
all know the tune, just pick your key.
Well,
I for one, am tired of it.
Let’s
talk about something I like – coffee. We all agree
(those of us that are coffee drinkers anyway) that
coffee is much to be desired and worthy of our praise,
adoration, devotion and consumption. I am a firm
believer in the Conehead philosophy of “Consume mass
quantities,” when it comes to the juice of the roasted
bean. Not only am I a practitioner of coffee consumption
but I endorse it heartily and encourage others to do the
same.
My
chief difficulty is that I am a postmodern coffee
drinker. I’m not a purist. I’m not an elitist. I’m
really a rater poor coffee drinker. Sometimes I buy my
coffee from Big Box stores like Wally World or Sam’s
Club. When I can get the Folger’s in bulk I jump at
the opportunity to keep the cupboard full. On other
occasions I will swing by the Caribou Coffee, Cup O’
Joe, or (gasp!) Starbucks, and cough up my hard-earned
dough for the same thing only different – regular
coffee, black, straight up. When it comes to the
caffeinated confection, I
am just as likely to imbibe the “cheap stuff”
as the “good stuff.” Effete snobbery has never been
one of my character traits. Quaffing the ceramic cup
clad in flannel and jeans is as good as it gets for me.
Unless
my main motivation is to sit in a quiet cozy nook with a
good friend and chat about the important things in life
–bird dog breeds or virtues of one car manufacturer
over another. Then it makes a difference.
Unless
I’m having a lot of folks over for a big family
get-together where the goal is to keep the coffee coming
as thick and fast as possible. Then it makes a
difference.
Basically,
whether I buy Big Box coffee or Specialty Store coffee
is a both/and for me. Each of them serves a purpose and
each of them meets the needs of their respective
consumers well. I don’t see coffee drinkers spending a
whole lot of angst worrying over who’s doing it
“right” and who missed the boat. We drink what we
drink for reasons other than the coffee itself. There is
no one right way to drink coffee.
But
you know I’m not talking about coffee, don’t you?
The
Big Box churches serve a purpose. They enjoy economies
of scale that allow them to do things Specialty Store
churches could never hope to do. They can host major
concerts, big conferences, large productions and all at
a lower unit cost than the little guys. They serve more
“customers” and do more “things” than their
comparatively smaller sisters. Does this make them
better or badder? Honestly, I don’t think that’s
even a question. Which is better – Sam’s Club or
Starbucks? It’s like comparing oranges to orangutans.
It defies comparison.
The
Specialty Store churches may charge a premium for their
“services” but they have a cozy intimate feel. They
have more opportunity for individual interaction and
attention. They don’t do nearly as many things as the
Big Box churches but the things they do, they do well.
It’s a primo experience when it works well and
“consumers” are willing to “pay” for the
experience by sacrificing breadth to get depth. Is that
better? Well yes, for some people. There are plenty of
coffee drinkers who never touch Starbucks. Does that
make them wrong? Why do we think Big Box church-goers
are wrong?
If
we’re supposed to be postmodern/emergent, then why
can’t we be both/and about the whole thing? Why does
it have to be one or the other? Why does one have to be
better than the other? Aren’t these modern arguments?
1 Corinthians 12 tells us that for a balanced body we
need eyes, ears and all the rest. One is not better than
the other but each contributes to the whole. Rather than
complaining and criticizing, let’s just drink our
coffee wherever we find it – in the foyer of a Big Box
church or around the table in a Specialty Store home
church.
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