The Gospel According to Starbucks

The Gospel According to Starbucks
a review by Brian Hughes

I recently finished reading Leonard Sweet's book The Gospel According to Starbucks. The first 40-50 pages are pretty slow, but then the book becomes a real gem. I almost put it down, but I'm so glad I didn't.

Sweet makes a case that Starbucks has tapped into the current cultural psyche and connected with people at a core human level. Further, he makes a compelling case that the church can and should adopt and adapt some of these marketplace practices in order to reach people with the Good News about Jesus.

He spends the bulk of the book talking about what he calls 'the EPIC life'. He says, "To turn your life into an EPIC adventure, you need four essentials. The EPIC life is characterized by these elements: It is Experiential. It is Participatory. It is Image-Rich. It is Connective." (p. 22).

Here are some highlights and a few comments from me:

Experiential. "A faith that is characterized by grande passion starts with meaningful experience. Imagine how different the Christian life would be if it was understood not as something to ponder or to observe in others - but as the one thing in life that has to be fully experienced. The EPIC life delivers the refreshing solution to theoretical Christianity. EPIC faith offers you a taste of life with God as you've never known it." (p. 29)

"We can pay more on one drink from Starbucks than a supermarket asks for a whole pound of coffee... 24% of Starbucks' customers visit 16 times per month. No other fast-food chain can claim that success... An investment of $10,000 twenty-five years ago [in Starbucks] would now be worth five million... A cup of coffee fetches such a high price because people aren't buying a cup of coffee. They are buying an experience of coffee. Starbucks didn't set out to reinvent coffee. They aimed to reinvent the coffee experience. The product is no longer king, it's the experience that surrounds the product that brings people in the door...deliver an authentic experience of emotional strength, spontaneity, and simultaneity, and they'll stand in line for it." (through page 43)

The argument Dr. Sweet makes is compelling. Experience is a key. People don't come to church for information - they can get that on the Internet or through any number of other sources. They come to church first for an experience. What kind of experience do we deliver? What kind of experience do we want to deliver? How can we change our current experience to deliver a more meaningful encounter between people and God?