Over a Cup of Coffee

There is a passage from Colossians 3 that can serve to remind us to seek to glorify God, to call attention to the presence of Christ in our lives. We begin with verse 15:
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

This is a great template for each of us, as we are called to pursue peace - recognizing that no matter what our background, if we call on the name of Christ, we are part of His body.  And, so we live in a manner that pleases God, filled with His Word and seeking to encourage one another.  We bear His name, and our actions are to reflect His presence within us.  Twice in those three verses, Paul tells us to exhibit an attitude of thankfulness.  We submit to Christ, grateful for what He's done, and grateful for the opportunities to testify to who He is and who He is in us.

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The apostle Paul encourages us to seek to glorify God in all that we do. Here are some of his words from 1st Corinthians 10:
31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
32 Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God,
33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
There is a popular concept of going to a coffee shop or a restaurant and having an informal conversation or even a business meeting, to get away for a few minutes in a comfortable environment.

Chances are that if you do this, you might drift to the home of the familiar green-and-white logo. And, if you go into certain Starbucks stores this week, you may have the opportunity to be forced into a conversation about one of the hot-button topics of our time.

Starbucks has announced its "Race Together" initiative.  The company website, referring to its Chairman and CEO, said that:

Howard Schultz voiced his concerns with partners (employees) in the company’s Seattle headquarters and started a discussion about race in America.

Despite raw emotion around racial unrest from Ferguson, Missouri to New York City to Oakland, “we at Starbucks should be willing to talk about these issues in America,"

Schultz said. "Not to point fingers or to place blame, and not because we have answers, but because staying silent is not who we are."

Partners were not silent. For more than an hour, at an all-hands meeting at the Starbucks Support Center, partners representing various ages, races and ethnicities passed a microphone and shared personal stories.

“The current state of racism in our country is almost like humidity at times. You can’t see it, but you feel it,” said one partner.

The press release added that over the past three months, more than 2,000 Starbucks partners have discussed racial issues at open forums in Oakland, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York and Chicago.

And, now, you too can participate in the discussion.  Starbucks has announced that partners in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Oakland and Los Angeles have voluntarily begun writing “Race Together” on Starbucks cups. And they are reportedly being joined by the employees in all Starbucks stores in the U.S.  And, partners in Starbucks stores may also engage customers in conversation through Race Together stickers available in select stores, and a special USA Today newspaper section arriving in stores later this week.

So, be warned - you may be forced to start a discussion about a very sensitive topic when you get that cup of coffee.   As John Hayward opines on the Brietbart.com website:

This sounds like a strategy to beat Starbucks’ stock into the dirt; maybe the hidden agenda is to drive customers away so they can shut down a few of the stores they threw up in their over-expansion frenzy and write off the losses. Even the act of handing customers a cup with race messages hand-written on them is going to make people feel uncomfortable, which is presumably the point of the exercise. It would be bad enough if these slogans were pre-printed on the containers, but hand-writing them turns it into a personal assault from the barista upon the customer – he or she is calling you out.

If the baristas begin verbally hassling customers in an effort to “start a discussion on race” with people who just want a cup of coffee and a danish to get their busy day started, this initiative will end up putting a thousand videos on YouTube, few of them flattering to Starbucks. Some of the customers are going to be more than merely annoyed by ambush confrontations over this “emotional issue.”

And, as we learned from the recent Selma events, does a conversation about racial issues get extended to sexual orientation, which is a subject that Starbucks has been less-than-silent about?  

Well, I actually believe that companies can have a social consciousness.  Unfortunately, as we've seen in the hundreds of friend-of-the-court briefs that companies have filed before the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of gay marriage, we see many in the corporate world who have decided to support the assault on traditional marriage, even though, as Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council is quoted as saying in a Brietbart piece on that subject: “These companies are acting irrationally. They are pandering to the 1.6% of the population that is homosexual while alienating the 61% who say they do not want the court to impose a redefinition of marriage on all fifty states."  A Huffington Post listing of 379 companies who have filed these briefs includes Starbucks.

I applaud the efforts of companies who realize that they have a platform and are using it to impact society for good to the glory of Christ.  Think, Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby.  How about Forever 21 and Tyson chicken?  There were 10 such companies that were profiled on the CNN Belief blog a few years ago.   

But, you don't expect to walk into a Chick-Fil-A restaurant or Forever 21 and have a political discussion with the customer service person.  But, you know there may be situations in the business context, where a conversation has been engaged in that can lead to spiritual matters.  

This situation with Starbucks and its "Race Together" initiative brings to mind several concepts for us as believers.  For one thing, I do think it can reinforce that each business or company has an opportunity for influence.  It may be something small, but the way you interact with customers can be a indication of your worldviews and your approach to them.   And, if you are dedicated to running your company on Christian principles, that does have some bearing on how you respond to the people with whom you do business.   I think Starbucks in this case is taking it too far in forcing conversation, but they apparently do see an opportunity for dialogue.

And, within the workplace context, we can also recognize that we have a chance to be ambassadors for Christ.  Things do get sensitive in the workplace, and we have heard instances where employers and employees do see the work environment as an excellent opportunity to share truth, and where they have sometimes been in trouble as a result.  So, we have to be sensitive, but we can also be intentional on how we share our faith in the workplace in the context of relationship.

Finally, in our culture, we do need to have conversations on racial matters, and the church should be leading the way in speaking out on race relations.   A greater understanding of and greater level of fellowship with those who are different than we are can promote unity within the body of Christ.  The civil rights movement had a strong spiritual component, and in these days where there is tension over the issue of race, we as Christians can help provide good perspective and promote Godly wisdom being injected into the discussion.