Friday, January 23, 2009

Starbucks

Something crazy happened to Jess today when she went to Starbucks and I just had to share it. I will probably incorporate it into the message this weekend, so consider this a sneak-peek.

A couple of years ago I got an idea from a pastor named Steve Sjogren from Cincinatti. He said every time he goes through the drive through he pays for the person behind him too. I thought that was pretty cool so I started doing it. Particularly at Taco Bell because they have a little digital sign that says what the total is for the next car. That way you don’t get someone ordering $40 worth of tacos, of course I don’t know how that is possible because that would be like 1,000 tacos, but I digress, or is that digest, I don’t know, anyway… It’s something that Jess and I have started doing regularly to help people.

Well today Jess was in the Starbucks drive-through (somewhere we visit often) and decided to pay for the woman behind her. She drove off as usual but this time the woman followed her, started flashing her lights, and honking! Jess didn’t exactly know what to do, so she pulled over. The woman came up to her and the conversation proceeded something like this…

  Woman: “Did you just pay for my coffee?”

  Jess: “Yes.”

  Woman: “Why?”

  Jess: “I just wanted to help out and do something nice for you.”

  Woman: “Are you a part of a church or something?”

  Jess: “Yes.”

And she proceeded to tell her about how our church wants to help people. In fact she was wearing her “Whatever It Takes” shirt. The woman was blown away. You know what I love most about this story? When Jess said that she wanted to do something nice, the first thing the lady asked was if she was a part of a church. That is awesome! It means that we have a reputation of helping. Far too often Christians get a bad rep for not caring, but this person assumed that Christ was the reason. Excellent. We will definitely gain some ground when people in our community really look at Christians as loving, caring, purposeful people who have something genuine to offer.

1 comments:

Doug Duggins - Production Pastor said...

Hey Jon and Jess why don't we go Taco Bell to get something to eat and then to Starbucks for some coffee. We'll just hit the drive through, I'll follow you. ROFL

Great story. It is up to followers of Christ to change our image within society. That's How We Do It.