Barnie’s Coffee

I was thinking today about a coffee house that we did a few years back. I don’t know how I got to thinking about it, but it just stuck out in my mind. Phat Rok and the whole Bean Krib gang were up at Mandarin Christian Church for a lockin. This was early in the official Bean Krib days, after we had just bought the coffee stuff and we were cruising in Bean 1. We must have gotten 50 lbs of Barnie’s Blend Decaf when we bought the company, sealed in 5 pound bags for ease of use.

Things were going well. There were a lot fewer kids there than were promised (another story for another time). Marshall was beating everyone up in the boxing ring and we were hanging out until it was time to serve the coffee. When it finally got to coffee time, it was crazy. Tons of kids hitting the bar all at once. They were tired. They needed some Java to get them going.

Like I said, we had tons of this Barnie’s Blend Decaf. It was all we served when doing youth coffee houses. While some of their parents might not mind them being wired on caffeine, we just felt it wasn’t our place to be the providers of the caffeine. So they are walking around (especially the Middle School crowd), talking about how wired they are.

A bit later we were talking to one of the adult sponsors. He was telling us how much of a coffee connoisseur he was, and how, while our coffee was good, he normally only drank Barnie’s coffee. We were pretty tired at this point so the irony didn’t strike us until much later in the evening (hopefully you caught it quicker).

I was thinking about all this, and about how sometimes the context of an encounter creates preconceived reality. Phat Rok’s Bean Krib serves Phat Rok’s coffee and coffee gets you hyper. No one actually cared about the reality of the situation. They only cared about what they thought they saw.

I wonder how often we miss the reality of what our churches look like to visitors? We just got finished with the Florida Christian Youth Convention. This year I was in charge of publicity, so it was my job to get the information out. I have to admit, I missed some rather big details. I left the date off the website, I forgot the competitions info entirely, and we left off the child care details. But one of the complaints that came back my direction made it sound like they thought the convention was our full time jobs. “Why don’t you guys try thinking like youth ministers who are bringing kids to this event?” We are youth ministers who are bringing kids to this event.

Perception overruled reality.

We spend a lot of time talking about how to make our services appear more professional. We spend money and energy to make things as flawless as possible. Historically, ministers have strived to live lives that were perfect examples of what it means to be a Christian leader. But then people are shocked when reality peaks through.

Our television show was as close to flawless as you possibly could be. Our teacher demanded it. When there were mistakes, you could hear him swearing through the soundproof studio walls. So was I ever shocked when I noticed that real News shows sometimes have mistakes. That reporters didn’t have perfect steady cameras as they ran from the people who were shooting in the streets. That was certainly not worthy of live television. But real life does not happen in a controlled television studio. Real life is bumpy and fraught with mistakes.

The question, I guess, is should perception or reality dictate the way we live our lives as Christians and the way that we “do” church? Should I allow peoples perception of me or the reality of real life be the thing that dictates my behavior. When all is said and done, many people will still be sipping that Barnie’s decaf, swearing that they are wired, and that their normal brew is much better.