I almost felt like a prophet when I read this in a Bloomberg story this morning.

Most of the 600 stores set to close were opened in late 2005 and 2006, Bocian said on the call with investors and analysts. During that time, more than 50 percent of the new stores had drive-through service, he said.

Consumers are driving less because of gasoline prices that have soared to more than $4 a gallon, according to separate surveys in the past two weeks by Mastercard Advisors analyst Michael McNamara and JPMorgan Securities Inc. analyst Himanshu Patel. (Full Article)

While the price of gas is certainly a factor, the drive thru customer base, I would argue, are not the people who are invested in the Starbucks vision or community. The drive thru undermined the core value of the coffee experience and now they are having to do what mainline churches have been doing for the last 20 years - too many locations too close in the same community to be sustainable. Downsize, close, merge, and see if you can recover your mission.

Interesting times we live in. It seems that the corporations that learned so well from the best of the church regarding evangelism, stewardship, and community are now reaping what went wrong in the church when it became “successful.”

I had a bad day today. The reasons aren’t important and some very good and hopeful things happened later in the day that I’m glad about.

But I was still cranky.

Until my friend Gene wrote this on my facebook wall.

It was the laugh I needed. I’ll sleep well tonight with a much better attitude.

Here’s the long awaited #43. I apologize for the sound quality - I had the air conditioner running and it was louder than what I realized.

Recently I have been pondering the rise and decling of Starbucks and their efforts to reconnect with their core values. What I see happening is their origins of offering a coffee experience in community has given way to selling a coffee product for corporate profit. While they are trying to make a turnaround, I see the same thing happening in the church, not just now but throughout its history. This is just my wired take on the situation.

No featured congregation with this podcast - just a little too much going on today to get that done too.

Enjoy!

Download the podcast here.

Links:

The Gospel According to Starbucks by Leonard Sweet

Know Magazine - Creating Passionate Consumers

Seattle Times - Starbucks Contrite, Ready For Comeback

One item that tends to come up is my preaching style. Aside from one odd congregation that fixed on equating having a manuscript handy with an inability to preach (the congregations I have served and the seminary I have taught preaching at would disagree), most ask about how I approach connecting real life with Scripture.

One recent call committee read my last post and found that their worship and music director has similar sensibilities of using pop music in worship. While the term pop music sounds kind of crass, I agree with Martin Luther when he said, “Why let the devil have all the best music?”

I contend that many of the best poets who write on the human condition and the search for faith are found on the radio and Itunes and I have made liberal use of both songs and music videos in worship when it made sense with the theme for the day. So, since some have asked and its just fun for discussion, here are some songs/videos I have used in worship before.

Bat Out of Hell II by Meatloaf (Lyrics by Jim Steinman - He rocks!)
“I’d Do Anything For Love But I Won’t Do That”
“It Just Won’t Quit”
“Objects in the Rear View Mirrior May Appear Closer Than They Really Are”

“What If God Were One of Us” by Joan Osbourne

“The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood
The song is incredible but the video is perfect for Christmas Eve.

“Only Love Remains” by Griffin House

“Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica

“Human Touch” by Bruce Springsteen - The video works great to talk about healing, community or incarnation.

“Hurt” by Johnny Cash - One of the best videos ever! It screams Ash Wednesday or Maundy Thursday.

“If Everyone Cared” by Nickelback

Some that I still want to use

Dig by Incubus - The video and song together would make a perfect Lent/repentence theme link.

The better video is here - This video is all animation and would be the preferred version. However, Sony has disabled embedding via You Tube, so you have to go there on your own. Bummer.

“Lost Highway” by Bon Jovi - ’nuff said

“New Soul” by Nael Yaim - Okay, its been overplayed but it would be a good song for the start of the school year.

“Samson” by Regina Spektor - If you ever preach on Samson, its an interesting take. Would work best if you had a soloist who could do it in house with an inhouse set images rather than the video.

The thing about using video that I have told my preaching classes is that just like the sermon itself, the video is not the point. Every element of worship serves as an experiential door to encounter the living Christ. As soon as its “cool” factor outweighs the experience of the worshipper and the presence of God, you have slipped into gimmickry. I have usually found that balance over the years. The issue for me is not pop or “christian” but how the words speak to our spiritual yearnings and our ultimate connections to God through Jesus, adding to a worship experience.

Now if I can just figure out how to use The Jedi Drinking Song…

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The way that I went with the sermon was our natural tendency to fall into us/them catagories, in this case Us = Pharisees/Church Members/Good People/God Approved vs. Them = Tax Collectors/Sinners/Non-Christians/Bad People/The Damned. What we forget is that Jesus came for “them”, not “us”, and if you begin to think of yourself as the preferred “us”, you’ve lost touch with the mission of Jesus.

My wife is a bigtime BonJovi fan and she turned me on to “Lost Highway”, which ties into some of this, since I see Matthew as something of the patron saint of lost souls.

In my rearview mirror
My life is getting clearer
The sunset sighs and slowly disappears
These trinkets once were treasure
Life changes like the weather
You grow up, grow old, or you hit the road ’round here
So I drive (drive drive)
Watching white lines passing by
My plastic dashboard Jesus
Waiting there to greet us

Oh patron saint of lonely souls
Tell this boy which way to go
Guide the car, you’ve got the keys
Farewell to mediocrity
Kicking off the cruise control
And turning up the radio
Got just enough religion
And a half a tank of gas
Come on
Let’s go

Sometimes we settle for mediocrity in our churches and worship, have too much religion and not enough Jesus, and way too certain about where we are going. Matthew had no clue and got up and went - a feeling I can really relate to right now. Jesus got into the midst of the real people, all the “thems” and spoke their language, ate their food, lived where they were, and invited them to bust loose for the journey, an independence day from sin to something new with him.

Like I said, I wish I had a projector but here it is for you.

In honor of that, here is the Facebook Song.

I don’t know if this means I have discovered a new means of creative expression or that I am on the road to having no life.

May and June have been absolutely nuts but the good news is that our transition continues. We have moved in our apartment and closed on our house despite my wife nearly breaking her ankle and ending up on crutches (not to get out of helping with the move ). So once we get things unpacked into the apartment, we wait to see what the Spirit has in mind for our next move where I can get back into the pastor groove and we can settle down as a family. Right now I feel a transition coming from feeling like Job into a life more like Abraham - on the journey to a promised land that I don’t know, can’t see, and God won’t say until we get there.

I have a couple of preaching gigs here in the Chicago area this summer filling in for pastors on vacation and a new worship project for our tribal publishing house - Augsburg Fortress. So a podcast may happen here before June is out - I have the outlines - but first I have to get the apartment in order and get my oldest son off to college orientation.

Hang in there, I know we are, and I’ll keep you up to date.

However, I did have time to finally do some updating last night to my Facebook page, so feel free to drop by there for more info.

So thanks for the thoughts and prayers and I’ll try to get a podcast up after the move this weekend.

tom

Dear SaveNetRadio supporter,

It has been a year since an increase in royalty fees for webcasters put the future of Internet radio at risk. Since then, more than 2 million people have called on Congress to save Internet radio, the Internet Radio Equality Act has been cosponsored by 150 Members of Congress, and a hearing was held in the House Small Business Committee. In spite of all this - nothing has changed. We need your help.

On Thursday May 15, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas will introduce the Internet Radio Equality Act (IREA) as an amendment to the Orphan Works Bill (S. 2913) while it is being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee . As you know, the IREA would level the playing field for Internet radio webcasters and promote greater parity within the radio industry, while doing away with the discrimination that now forces webcasters to pay fees more than twice as high as their closest competition, cable and satellite radio.

You can help. At least one of your Senators is a Member of the Judiciary Committee and we need their support. Call them today and ask them to support independent artists, small businesses, and the future of Internet radio. You can find their phone number and talking points here: http://www.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html. Ask your Senator to support the Brownback Amendment to S. 2913.

We need your help to remind Congress that though Internet radio is still on the air and artists are still being paid for their work by webcasters, nothing has been resolved and we need them to act.

On behalf of webcasters, artists and fellow Internet radio listeners everywhere, thank you. Let’s finish what we started a year ago.

I know, its sounds wack but take a listen.

Download the podcast here.

Featured Congregation
Check out Jacob’ Porch, the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Pastor Jay Gamelin is very real about creating authentic community not only for the students on campus but in ways that “regular” congregations could learn from. They are even doing a U2charist next month! Its good enough almost to make of Michigan fan like me give a little love toward the Scarlet and Gray.

Almost.

Program note: I had some issues with Audacity on my Macbook Pro while recording this podcast, so I’m not completely happy with it. However, with a temporary lock up that almost cost me all the data, I just burned the mp3 and posted it, minus some level editing and some background music I didn’t intend, so its a little rougher than normal. I figured you rather have the podcast than none at all this week..