Starbucks: Sacred Space?

Despite their July 1st announcement that they’re closing 600 stores in the United States, Starbucks remains a massive international operation.  With approximately 15,000 outlets worldwide, many patrons across the globe have sipped (or guzzled) one of their beverages.  I have been in Starbucks establishments in the USA, Europe, and Southest Asia, and in each setting I have found a high level of service, quality and ambiance, as well as a consistently expensive menu for anything but a basic cup of coffee.  But that is a different topic for another day.

Whether or not you enjoy their beverages, one of the things that strikes me about the Starbucks experience is that it engages all the senses.  Think about it for a minute.  As soon as you walk in the door, the aroma of freshly ground coffee (and so-so muffins and scones) penetrates your nose, working up an energetic salivary response.  Soothing, eclectic, somewhat edgy music, dancing over the hum of the espresso machines and coffee grinder,  glides into your ears.  And eyes embrace a warm, inviting color palette and interior that beckons you to “take a load off” and stay for a long while.  Even the textures of the fabrics, countertops, tables, and walls are interesting, inviting your fingers to linger a bit longer than normal.

The environment is pleasing, inviting, conducive to community, sharing, and connection.  Sadly, this is not always the case in our churches, where beauty, a warm handshake, and ”sacred” space for reflection and sacrament are often extracted from the worship experience.  There are many reasons why this is so, some of which are utilitarian.  Many churches, often rightly concerned with making every dollar count, skimp or neglect aesthetics altogether.

The consequences are often perilous.  Instead of creating an atmosphere that feels safe and inviting, many churches create an environment that feels sterile, institutional, hurried, and shallow.  Friendship suffers, the imagination suffers, and hope suffers.

We who lead in the church could take helpful queues from our observances of the sacraments, which, when rightly administered serve as bold reminders of the importance of the physical and material in experiencing the fullness of the grace of God.  Aesthetics do matter!  Our senses are intended to be sensed.  Gerald L. Sittser in Water from a Deep Well, a wonderful book on the history of Christian spirituality, agrees.

“The tangible, concrete, material nature of the sacraments reminds us of the reality of Christ’s saving work.  The sacraments join material and spiritual together into a seamless whole, just as the incarnation does.  They are window that allow us to gaze into another world and receive the grace that pours from that world into ours.”

Our churches might not look like the Starbucks down the street, but they should be equally interesting, inviting, hospitable.  They ought to engage the senses, ignite the imagination, affirm beauty, and allow personal space for reflection and change.  A commitment to create “sacred space” need not be expensive and wasteful.  Sometimes the simplest expressions, such as children’s art or handwritten banners by congregants describing the attributes of God (done by my church in recent days), can be powerful reminders of God’s boundless love, grace, and mercy.  Our churches have so much to offer, which is why they ought to be at least as inviting and imaginative as the Starbucks or other local coffee house around the corner.