Not all church coffee is bad, but the issue that poor church coffee raises is deeper and more troubling. It is that much of what we do as churches can often be described as substandard, second best, mediocre or weak.
We’ve all come across signs of slackness in church life: heating systems so dilapidated that the congregation keep their gloves on in winter, PA systems held together by insulating tape and notice boards still advertising Christmas services in February; ministers who are underpaid, live in crumbling, damp houses and drive cars that barely pass their MOTs; music groups that don’t know how many verses to play and church websites that crash when you click on them.
I'm not criticising poverty in churches. There are many small congregations where few people are employed yet they somehow manage to do the very best with limited resources and many people serving voluntary. And I'm not complaining about ministers who, through lack of resources, have to do more than anyone ought reasonably to expect. What I'm concerned about is a casual attitude to church life that accepts second best as good enough for God. This can happen in any church but is particularly troubling in churches with wealthy members who seek quality and excellence in every other area of their lives.
Why do we have a quality problem?
· In some Christian circles there is still a belief that nothing should be enjoyable, especially church. Anything that smacks of pleasure is viewed with suspicion. In this perverse view there is virtue in hard pews, out-of-tune instruments and rambling sermons. Such things – ¬and poor coffee – are supposedly good for the soul!
· There is an undervaluing of the local church. For nearly 2000 years Christians have prized their local church, but today the local church is no longer automatically high on a Christian’s priorities. There are even some who consider the local church to be irrelevant and dispensable.
· There may also be a particularly British aspect to this malaise in church life. As a nation we celebrate amateurism and informality. American churches are less prone to this, although they may suffer from the opposite temptation, aspiring to a professionalism that can produce professional organisations more akin to businesses.
Why should we pursue excellence?
· We worship a God who demonstrates excellence in all he does. He created the entire universe and then made that simplest and most satisfying of quality control statements: what he had made was good (Genesis 1). When faced with solving the problem of a human race that had rebelled against him, he chose the most costly of solutions: sacrificing his only Son.
