Coffee House Ends...

I've been involved with a really cool coffee house ministry for the last four months at a local Starbucks. (Two gals, Anita and Liz, had been asked to play and sing there on Tuesday nights. They set up a tract table, and then they allowed me to tag along to share the gospel on the mike a couple of times a night.)

Well, about three weeks ago the assistant manager happened to be in while we were there. Normally she was not there while we were "performing." In fact, I had never even seen her. Only the other two gals had talked to her before... and although nothing was ever hidden from her, we all had our doubts that she really understood what we were doing. Anyway, this evening she picked up one of our coffee trivia tracts. Then she came around to me as I was standing by the tract table. She walked up holding it and said, "This is really great!" I had no idea who she was and I immediately assumed she was a Christian who had read the gospel message and was telling how great she thought this outreach was. I started reaching for a copy of Hell's Best Kept Secret to hand to her while saying offhandedly, "So, you're a Christian?" She looked puzzled and replied, "No." I stopped reaching for HBKS and sort of stood there awkwardly trying to figure out what in the world she thought was "great?" She paused for a second then continued, "I think this coffee trivia is a great way to expand the coffee house experience. I'd like to share this with all the other managers at our regional meeting (or something like that). Would that be alright?" Now I knew who she was. "Um, sure," I peeped. And then I thought to myself, Well, that's it... when we arrive next week, after she's read that thing all the way through, we're outa here.

The next week we arrived, all three of us expecting to see her standing there scowling... and there was nothing. We did the outreach as usual, all of us surprised. The week after that, it was the same... no one stopped us. Then this Tuesday, it finally happened.

The girls had already set up an were ready to begin when another assistant manager (not the one we had dealt with before) came up very apologetically, but somewhat coldly, and said that we were welcome to play music and sing, but we would not be allowed to pass out literature or "ask those questions" on the mike anymore. She said that they liked the coffee trivia paper but that on the back when it started talking about our "religion" it sounded very "exclusive" -- as if it was the only right religion. She also said that a customer had complained about us asking those "questions" on the mike, and she didn't think it was appropriate.

Anita was very gracious and friendly to her. She told the assistant manager that if we weren't going to be allowed to pass out the literature or talk to people on the mike then it wouldn't be worth our time to be there. The manager again said she didn't want to offend us, but these were Starbuck's policies. Anita told her that we understood and that we thanked them very much for the opportunity we'd had already. Then Anita told her that whether she knew it or not, that God had used them to spread the gospel over the last four months. We had a very amiable parting.

The three of us sat down and had a cup of coffee. We figured out that over the last four months we've proably given out more than 2,000 tracts and well over 100 CDs and DVDs... while in addition we verbally preached the gospel to several hundred people. What a fruitful window of opportunity God gave us here... He actually blinded the eyes of Starbucks management for more than four months... so that He could accomplish His own purposes.

Cool, huh? :-)