In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 3]

So, I have come to church at Starbucks. The rationale behind this decision is really quite straightforward. I like coffee. I like strangers. I like drinking coffee and talking to strangers. I realized that I have often felt closer in my relationship with Jesus when I am sitting in a coffee shop sharing life with another person, than when I was sitting in a church pew hearing the same song and the same sermon. Now this need of mine to withdraw from traditional church for a time is not at all indicative of a lack of knowledge or honesty or genuineness in the church in general, for I know those qualities exist in abundance. Rather it is indicative of my inability to get over my own prejudices and petty complaints and find Jesus in spite of the small inconsistencies and rough spots I found in church. I realized that if I could not meet Jesus just about anywhere I looked for him, then my relationship with him was seriously lacking in intimacy and integrity.
Let’s say, for example, that I’m stuck on a plane next to Bob. I don’t know Bob and he doesn’t know me. We are both annoyed to be stuck on a plane. We have nothing to talk about and having each other as seatmates does not make the experience any more pleasant for either of us. Now imagine I am stuck on a plane with my friend Alma. We have shared many good and bad circumstances together. We know each other’s dirty messes and we have loved each other in spite of them. Even though I may not enjoy being stuck on a plane, I can still enjoy Alma’s presence there with me precisely because I know and love her, appreciate her friendship, and cherish every moment I get to spend with her. That is how I think it should be with Jesus. Only I wasn’t enjoying his presence when I was in church, the very place where I should feel closest to him. I decided to pull myself (and Jesus) out of church for a while to work on our relationship alone. It’s been 2 months, and I can say that this was the best decision I have ever made.
It has been here at “Starbucks Church” that I have walked deeper into my relationship with Jesus, simply by spending time alone with him, and often inviting a friend to join me. It makes perfect sense that we would get to know God better by getting to know his creation better. And if what he says is true, people are his favorite creation. This made me think that an excellent way to expand my understanding of God would be through sharing conversations with his people. That includes the ones who believe in him and the ones who don’t. I like to call these conversations “heart talks” because they’re all about two people taking their insides and putting them on the table for the other to look at. There is something so vulnerable about letting someone else see what only I know about myself, but the feeling of connection and of validation that comes when they see me for who a really am and accept me in spite of it is marvelously worth the risk. When someone shares their heart with me, I feel like I’ve been given one of the ultimate gifts, one of the highest honors.
My friend Cari says that these are the conversations that make you realize who you are, and who you are not, and what you are capable of, what you stand for and believe in and how much you love and care for the person you are talking with. I think she’s right, especially about finding out who you are and who you are not. In my “heart talks” with other people, I’ve found out three life changing things:
1. I am not alone
2. other people long for connection as much as I do and
3. God likes it when we find him in and through eachother.

I cannot even begin to express the feeling of relief that comes from finding out you are not the only one with problems.

In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 2]

Now transparency is not something I learned by myself. In fact, it was only through friendships with people who were willing to be honest with me, despite my messiness. It was Heather who first modeled transparency for me and who, in doing so, gave me permission to be real around her. I found myself wanting to spend more and more time with her, because I had not yet learned to translate that freedom into other relationships. All I knew was that no matter who I was, no matter how I acted around her, no matter how LONG it took for me to get my act together, she was always patient, always there for me, always encouraging. At a time in my life when I was having trouble believing that Jesus could love and accept me when his own Christians didn’t, Heather showed me what a Christian is supposed to be like. She helped me to see that it was unfair for me to judge Jesus’ character by the imperfect people all around me who were following him, but who were just as messed up as I was. It took two years of Heather’s patience, love, and gentle pushing to get me to the place where I truly felt like I had learned to see myself and others like Jesus sees us. Since then I have found so many people just like her: Laura, Reames, Alma, Marlene, John, Patty, Rachel, Rod, Lauren, Marcela, Irma, Sheyla, and so many more...and my life as taken on this rich quality that only community, unconditional love, and deep friendships that spring from Jesus's grace can bring.
Now, before I make it sound like I have “arrived”, let me say that there are still days when I wake up with a frown, feel unloved, have a bad attitude, judge, hate, curse, lie, etc. How I can call myself a Christian and still be such an imperfect person is a subject for another post. For now, all I need to know is that I am a work in progress, which, when you think about it is the best we can say of anyone, regardless of their beliefs. It has been a lesson for me in grace-giving, both to myself, to people I don’t like, and to people who don’t like the people I think they should like. If I got grace, everybody should get grace.
And so it has been that in the presence of other Christians, other Jesus people, that I have found both the most hurt and the most healing, the most pressure and the most freedom, the most sorrow and the most joy. And now that I look back, I think that this is how it should be. I came to church with high expectations, expecting no one to fail me, expecting no one to judge me. Now, however, I realize that what I wanted to find was a bunch of perfect people, all waiting for me and willing to love and accept me in my imperfection. That is what I mean when I say that I came to church with unrealistic expectations. What I was wanting from other people (unconditional love, forgiveness, joy, acceptance) were things I was not willing to give to them or myself yet. In fact, though I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t even willing to receive those things from others yet, let alone from God (yet another story for another post). And while I did come to church with the expectation of finding certain characteristics, my expectation of what I would not find was the one that really got bashed to the ground. I did not expect to be failed by Christians even though I myself have failed others. I did not expect to be hurt by Christians even though I have hurt many people. When you think about it, though, the entire premise of Christianity is based on the idea that everyone in the who world, from Mother Teresa to Jeffery Dahmer, is a failure when compared to God’s perfection. Why I expected to find perfect people in church is beyond me.

In Defense of Starbucks Church [Part 1]

I have given myself permission to not go to church for 3 months. One Sunday morning in Mexico, I woke up and realized that I was dreading going to church. As I lay there analyzing that feeling (which is what, as an introvert, I feel obligated to do with all my feelings) it dawned on me that I had not wanted to go to church for a long time. I would wake up on Sunday morning and go to church out of habit, but once I got there, I just wanted to leave. This had happened to me at every church I went to over a year, so I do not blame any particular church for not catering to what I wanted to find. Most of the problem lay in the fact that many of my expectations of what church should be were unrealistic. There were parts of me that wanted to find community in church; that wanted to be vulnerable and find love among fellow Christians in spite of my inadequacies and failures. I think that is a reasonable craving, but I have to admit that the environment I found in several churches was not one of acceptance. Unconditional love was preached, the idea of it was held up as ideal, but in practice most of what I found was a watered-down version of grace that only reached to superficial failures like telling white lies and letting dinner burn and leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. At first I felt like there was no one in the church who would accept me for who I really was. It was hard to believe that Jesus would accept me when some of his Christians got squirmy when I asked about sin and failure.

Then I realized two things. They didn’t come to me out of the blue one day sitting in the sunshine and listening to the birds. They probably came to me one night when I was running my heart out on the beach and crying about what a sad, sad case I was. I realized that first of all, I am one of the Christians I was complaining about. The very act of not being transparent myself was only exacerbating the problem. By not being real, I was encouraging others to do the same. The second thing I realized was that I didn’t know how to be the person I wanted to be. When I thought of what a Christian should look like, and then held that blueprint over my own sad heart, none of the shapes lined up. I needed to figure out if there was something wrong with me, something wrong with my blueprint, or both. It ended up being a little of both, but that took me a long time to figure out. I’m slow.