{"id":7266,"date":"2019-12-20T08:42:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T14:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisciplemaker.org\/?p=7266"},"modified":"2019-12-20T08:42:42","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T14:42:42","slug":"what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/","title":{"rendered":"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p>Starbucks provides a great example of using language to invite people into a new way of thinking. When I\u2019m in my local (non-Starbucks) coffee store, I often ask for a \u201cgrande.\u201d To which the barista replies, \u201cYou mean a medium?\u201d \u201cOh, right, I say .\u00a0.\u00a0. yes, a medium.\u201d Starbucks, to create a culture in which people thought about coffee in a new way\u2014as an exotic experience\u2014and to claim mindshare in the world of competitive coffee, imported Italian language (and threw in \u201ctall\u201d) to denote its sizes: tall, grande, venti. To build a distinct culture for Starbucks, the company incorporated language which has become, for some, a normative way of thinking about ordering coffee. <strong>This changes the experience of the consumer, whether they are conscious of it or not.<\/strong> That\u2019s the power of language: It creates a normative way of thinking within us.<br \/>\nChurches aren\u2019t businesses, and Christian leaders are not business leaders, but they are fighting for mindshare; they must capture the attention and the imagination of those who follow them. Our lingua franca matters. Our vernacular\u2014the language we use most naturally and normatively\u2014reveals how we view reality. In the early church, the phrase \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d was a loaded one that flew in the face of the dominant culture. It was a call to a revolutionary way of living based not in empire but in God\u2019s Kingdom. It was, in fact, treasonous language. It was far more potent than what we now mean by \u201cbeing a Christian,\u201d which can mean anything from being a sincere and devoted follower of Jesus to being born into a Christian home.<br \/>\nI cringe when I hear people say, \u201cI go to church at Long Beach Christian Fellowship.\u201d I know what is meant by the phrase, and I don\u2019t make a fuss over it, but think about the reality that phrase invokes: I go there, to church, then I leave. <strong>It creates the idea\u2014and a culture around the idea\u2014that church is a place we go to rather than the reality of a people on a journey and a mission together.<\/strong> In the New Testament, \u201cchurch\u201d is presented as a people doing life together (see Acts 2:42-47), learning to honor and love one another (Romans 12:10). It is a qualitative reality, based on a way of being together. Our language, on the other hand, often encourages a consumer mind-set, not a mind-set of participation. I coach people to use the language \u201cI\u2019m a part of LBCF\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m a part of the community (or family) at LBCF.\u201d This language invites an entirely different reality than \u201cgoing to church.\u201d By the same token, we don\u2019t call our worship gatherings \u201cservices\u201d: Although it had a beautiful intent in its earlier usage, evoking worship as an act of love and service to God, this word has become eroded through time and imagination to mean very little other than a religious liturgy. Instead, we call them \u201cgatherings\u201d or even \u201cfamily gatherings.\u201d This change in language invites an entirely different world of meaning, imagination, and possibility.<br \/>\n<strong>Language, used powerfully, can always call people into a new reality.<\/strong> It can build new culture. Of course, if people cling to thinking of church as a place they go rather than a community that they embody, changing the language will have little effect. Still, language is a good place to start.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/34esc8g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-7263\" src=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cost-of-Cheap-Grace-PNG-833x1024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"553\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nTaken from <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/34esc8g\"><em>Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship<\/em><\/a> by Bill Hull and Brandon Cook. Click the book to read a free excerpt from chapter 1.<br \/>\nCopyright \u00a9 2019. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starbucks provides a great example of using language to invite people into a new way of thinking. When I\u2019m in my local (non-Starbucks) coffee store, I often ask for a \u201cgrande.\u201d To which the barista replies, \u201cYou mean a medium?\u201d &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/#more-7266\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[129,160,489],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks - The Disciplemaker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks - The Disciplemaker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Starbucks provides a great example of using language to invite people into a new way of thinking. When I\u2019m in my local (non-Starbucks) coffee store, I often ask for a \u201cgrande.\u201d To which the barista replies, \u201cYou mean a medium?\u201d ... Read moreWhat Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Disciplemaker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-20T14:42:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/11\/thirteen-j-8kgIc_1Kwfw-unsplash-scaled-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2551\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Disciplemaker Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Disciplemaker Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Disciplemaker Team\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/#\/schema\/person\/5ce8c0ea9d53a579d4f8b55f3156f239\"},\"headline\":\"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-20T14:42:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-20T14:42:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\"},\"wordCount\":623,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Cost of Cheap Grace\",\"Discipleship\",\"Starbucks\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Go\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\",\"name\":\"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks - The Disciplemaker\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-20T14:42:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-12-20T14:42:42+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2019\/12\/what-churches-can-learn-from-the-language-of-starbucks\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Churches Can Learn from the Language of Starbucks\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/\",\"name\":\"The Disciplemaker\",\"description\":\"Bold. 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