So this afternoon I met up with a friend for some coffee at Starbucks. We were just talking about life and whats been going on. After about an hour of this she excused herself to go use the restroom, while I was sitting there the song "Youth Ministarz" popped into my head. There is a line "rollin' to the Starbucks to work on my message..." as I though about this another thing popped into my head. Starbucks Spirituality, or faith. I have been reading the book Ministry Mutiny by Greg Stier. The whole book is about, well Ministry Mutiny. There is a young youth pastor who was about to quit his job because he felt like a failure, his youth group was not growing spiritually and he felt as though it was all his fault and he could do nothing. He ends up meeting another youth pastor named Tony. Tony came up with the ministry mutiny and has been meeting with Ty (the young YP) once a week and has been mentoring him.
In chapter 6, Grow Deep, the two meet at a Starbucks. Ty orders some complicated drink and Tony orders just plain coffee. This gets them into the conversation about how everyone orders different drinks. How everyone tries to "order" their own faith. People try and pick and choose what parts of Christianity they like and ones that they don't and go with it. everyone wants to be an individual.
One of the arguments I love is: Can you be a Christian and not go to church? many would say yes, and explain why. Yet others would say no, I am one of them. I believe that there are certain things that Christians do and don't do, believe and don't believe. Such as, if someone believes that the trinity are 3 separate persons/bodies they are a Polytheist and therefore not christian because Christian's are monotheists. There are other theological things that the church believes that people either don't know, or disagree with. I believe that there are many issues like this that some throw out the window because they "don't like it" and by doing so they are not a Christian because they are not doing/believing what the Church (universal) believes one must do/believe in order to be a true Christian.
Another conversation that some friends and I started a few days ago was on pacifism. And how someone we knew believes that you cannot be a christian if you are not a pacifist. Jesus was one so we must be, or not be called Christian. I myself have a hard time with this. we all presented our perspectives and what we know and believe now. But it is things like this that get me to think about where I stand on such subjects. Because I was never taught what the Church (universal) believes and stands upon.
In the end we all agreed that the church sucks at teaching its people what is and is not christian. Maybe it is because we all want our own special flavor of Christianity. I agree that some topics are gray areas, but others are not.
I don't know about you, but I don't want a Starbucks faith. I think that is something that keeps people naive and not willing to listen or learn other perspectives. Instead of learning they will cop out with "well this is what I believe, you believe what you want" in other words "I like frapichino's and you like moca's, you drink what you want I will drink what I want" not caring that one is (or could be) theologically wrong and against what the Church says. We do not want to offend people and people are easily offended or defencive when it comes to religion. In the end I think a lot of people are sending the message that they are more afraid of people not liking them rather than people calling themselves one thing but living another way. This is how the name Christian became tainted in the first place. People calling them selves Christ followers yet they were not acting, and living the way one who follows Christ does.
Think about it, talking with your pastor's, parents, friends, and whomever else about it. Do you have Starbucks faith?
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