There is an interesting movement going on in Mega Churches today. Many of them are now adding the cafeterias and Starbucks to their facilities. There is a lot who see this as something wrong or heretical and then there are others who love the idea of it. Whether it’s right or wrong to have corporate business under the roofs of our churches is not as important as why they are there. Let me explain.
I work a lot in coffee houses around Chicago land – it used to be downstate, but I’ve recently moved up north. And since I’ve begun hanging out these coffee shops I’ve begun to notice “regulars.” The regulars are the people who come in every week, they order the same thing, meet with the same people and talk about the same stuff – I’m one of these people. But when I take my headphones and listen to the world around me I’m hearing a different kind of conversation. What I’m hearing is what we in the Christian circles call “discipleship meetings” or “accountability meetings.” A meeting where believers in Christ get together to practice the wisdom of Proverbs 27:17: “As one iron sharpens iron, so let one man [or woman] sharpens another.”
This phenomenon is really intriguing to me because for a while I thought it was only me and my buddies doing this. But the more I watch people and the more I see those regulars I’m realizing that places like Panera Bread, Starbucks and Caribou Coffee are resembling the church more and more – the Church being the body of believers and not the building itself. And as a follower of Christ, that really excites me because it is our job to sharpen one another and I love the process of it all. It also excites me because I’m starting to see a generation of people who are saying that church is not about a building, or programs or a denomination, but it’s about a relationship with Jesus Christ as the only means for salvation.
So that bring us to the question of why should the church have these “evil” [stereotyping there] corporate businesses under their roof. Frankly there is nothing wrong with having industry inside the church – God created industry and work before the fall of man, so it’s a good thing; but that is a whole other topic. The reason why is that Christians today are begging for community and if the churches they belong to are not providing an adequate meeting locations which are able to meet their needs, then the church will just have to move to the nearest Panera Bread! That’s not a knock on churches; it’s just the reality of the culture today. We may be Christians, but we still want a good atmosphere, great coffee, a scone maybe and Norah Jones or Maroon 5 playing in the background.
i feel that incorperation of corperations into the church is wrong. did not Jesus throw over the tables of the money lenders, and did he not preach to not make a profit off the church, and did he not beilive in giving to others what they need and giving up your possesions and giving the money to the poor. and yet besides all this the mega church of america continues to bring in things for it’s church goers to consume while others starve, the money used to buy that mocha could be better used feeding God’s starving children. also i cannot recall God creating industry and work befor the fall of man, the fall of man was when Adam and Eve ate the appel, and befor that there was no work, just paradise. We are just building another Babylon and if we dont do something to change our ways we are going to have to face the consicenses.