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The Devil's Beverage

by Seth Worley

 

I'm not certain if the following passage is true or not, but the story is relevant so Ill tell it anyway.

 

In Rome, the clergy appealed to Pope Clement VIII to have coffee banned, calling it "the devil's beverage." But when the pope tried it, he liked it so much that he gave it his blessing. Soon the first coffee houses opened in Europe.

 

I wonder why the clergy got all bent out of shape over this new beverage? Maybe it had nothing to do with the temperature or the caffeine. Maybe it was the reputation that it had, and the threat it held toward their traditional lives. it was something, bold, radical, fresh, new. As Christians, it is easy for us to fear change. It is hard to be versatile in this ever-emerging world. If you've ever walked into a coffee shop (if you haven't I want to know how you get internet connection in your cave), you've experienced community.

 

It is an accepting atmosphere, an honest environment, a creative niche. You most likely saw somebody's art sporadically placed about the honestly-aged walls. You probably saw people that are stereotypically categorized as all owning a pair of black glasses, who were doing anything from drawing in notebooks to reading philosophy books to typing away on their iBooks. Maybe the corporate consumer inside of you escaped and ordered a grande non-fat no-whip white chocolate mocha (with an extra shot), or perhaps your naturalism led you to a house coffee (with two equals), or you could just be there for the cool environment and a hot chocolate (be careful not to spill it on your PC laptop). All sarcasm aside, while you were there, you felt something comforting, yet dangerous.

 

Something peaceful, yet revolutionary.

 

Something encouraging, yet honest.

 

What you felt was community.

 

This is hopefully what you feel when you walk into church, whether you are in a large sanctuary, a renovated warehouse, or somebody's living room, the air is filled with gusts of creativity and dangerous exploration. You are welcomed into community, regardless of your social, political, or financial status. You're encouraged to explore, experience, and express.

 

Unfortunately, in the modern church, this is not always true. We seem to be afraid of unscheduled, uncontrolled community. This is the difference between a church and a coffeehouse.

 

A church building only seems to be able to provide organized community, where you are invited into fellowship within the confinements of a structured environment, limited by time and topic.. By nature, the church is a structured community. We know what time things will happen and what room they will happen in. We are encouraged to show up on time, experience what has been planned for us, and experience it together. A coffeehouse on the other hand provides a chaotic community.

 

Chaotic community has no schedule, no structure. People come and go as they please, when they please. You have options within the community. The sub-communities you find at a church, and at a coffeehouse, are similar. You've got the caffeine junkies who drink it by the gallon. They've frothed their way through life, and you start to wonder if they even have jobs. You've got the fans of the beverage, who hold a special place in their hearts for the beloved environment, but their busy schedules and long list of priorities keep them from integrating a coffee shop into their daybook. You've got the socialites who show up for study breaks and post-movie conversations, who have probably never really even read the menu (because hot chocolate is easy enough to ask for). And as in all stories, you've got the new kid who drove by this place everyday and finally worked up the guts to enter alone, and most likely doesn't know how to pronounce frappucino. In high school, our group of friends never really had a place to hang out, except church. I had an office I had made for myself in a storage room where we kept the editing machine. I threw a rug and bean bags in there and we would hang out up there the majority of our time. Nowadays, my newer group of Nashville friends hang out at Starbucks. At college, we hung out at common grounds, the campus coffee shop.

 

There's a formula here. People crave chaotic community. They crave a place to belong where their presence is inspired. And with our culture, one of the best places to receive this is in a coffee shop. If the church has the desire to reach the unreached, it would need to feel more like a coffeehouse than a church. Just a thought

 

______

Seth Worley is 19 years old and currently lives in Nashville, TN, working as a freelance videographer and filmmaker. He sucks at writing. He blogs at awakeland.blogspot.com 

 

 

  

  

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