There is a certain side of me which loves taking breaks to go to coffee shops. Is this just another part of my identity, is it real? Why?
Sometimes I think I go to coffee shops just to fit in, to find a surrounding that feels like it fits my identity. I like to go to a place just to sit and soak up the time while I write or surf the net, or just enjoy a cup of coffee. Sometimes I just think it feels good. Often, though, I feel like the chance to sit and slowly sip somehow gives me a time and a place to label all the actions of the day. But why go to a coffee shop to do that? Why not go to a library, to a diner, to a classic cafe or to a park?
Am I just addicted to coffee, my drug of choice? A recreational drug which just makes me feel good? I hope there’s more to it though. I love good coffee, I love the craft of making a good cup of espresso, of the liturgy by which we get coffee. But that move makes coffee seem even more idolatrous, like some sort of a replacement for something better, something God.
But I do not give up on coffee. Perhaps a coffee shop is also a place slightly different still. Not just a place that one can stumble into, but more of a place of meeting. It is a place where people not only meet others, but meet themselves. But I have a greater hope still. I think the next step, or what should rightly be the first, is that a coffee shop is a place for an encounter with God.
So what is a theologically oriented coffee shop? What might that look like? In several of my “reviews” I have been alluding to something of that nature. I suppose I can rephrase the question, what happens to a coffee shop when it is redeemed, or when all those who run it are redeemed? If coffee shops existed in paradise, what would they be like?
Primarily, I think there must be an acknowledgement of God’s central role in the whole thing. This must be the first move, before all other considerations. The primary function of such a coffee shop would not be expressed with a telos in itself. It might serve coffee, but the serving of coffee would be also a service to God. It could not be reduced or represented as self serving or self building. It does not exist for itself. But for God, in God and through God.
What if we saw coffee as a gift from God. In that way would we rather more enjoy the opportunity to distribute such a gift to others? Would we acknowledge the giftness of all that we have? Would we turn more in praise to the creator?
I think we might begin to see ourselves rather a stewards of the things placed in our charge. Our motivation is now not to clear a space for ourselves merely to enjoy coffee, but to redirect all of that towards the establishment of the kingdom of God. We seek to continue a work wrought in us. To pass along that moment of God’s reshaping ourselves, to establish a space to that to happen in other’s lives.
What does such a space look like? How do we know when we have established it? We were entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. We were entrusted with the good news, and commissioned to preach it to all nations. We were called into this new kingdom, and called to share the news of what God has done for us. So this space, I think, should be mixture of all these. I think it must facilitate both fellowship and prayer. It must give opportunity for deep connections and bonds of godly relationships. But there must also be a space for meditation on God. But still I don’t know what this means.
Can architecture facilitate this? How do we make space for this? Or do we? Maybe such a space is a gift of God as well, one that we cannot really create ourselves, only try to manage as best we can.
Perhaps this coffee shop would look a lot like a group of friends each trying to support one another. Perhaps it would look like a quiet evening with soft rains and warm fire where a few could gather together in Christ’s name. Perhaps it would look like any other coffee shop, but it would acknowledged from the start that the space was clear for an openness about the gospel.
Perhaps this coffee shop might begin to look more and more like Christ. It might more and more give up itself as coffee shop, and more and more become servant. It might more and more seek to give to others.
Hmm…
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