The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion [Paperback]

Leonard Sweet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2007

Introducing the life you’d gladly stand in line for

You don’t stand in line at Starbucks® just to buy a cup of coffee. You stop for the experience surrounding the cup of coffee.
Too many of us line up for God out of duty or guilt. We completely miss the warmth and richness of the experience of living with God. If we’d learn to see what God is doing on earth, we could participate fully in the irresistible life that he offers.
You can learn to pay attention like never before, to identify where God is already in business right in your neighborhood. The doors are open and the coffee is brewing. God is serving the refreshing antidote to the unsatisfying, arms-length spiritual life–and he won’t even make you stand in line.
Let Leonard Sweet show you how the passion that Starbucks® has for creating an irresistible experience can connect you with God’s stirring introduction to the experience of faith.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Studies show that fewer Americans than we thought attend church, and Sweet, popular author (Soul Salsa) and professor of evangelism at Drew Theological School in New Jersey, thinks that the church should take cues from an institution that isn't suffering a lack of customers: Starbucks. For all his hip cultural sensitivity, Sweet hasn't shed one standby of church-growth books: the acronym. His is EPIC, which stands for Experience, Participation, "Images that throb with meaning," and Connection. Starbucks has mastered EPIC living, and the church can, too. The successful coffee corporation recognizes that people are drawn in through visual icons, and it beats competitors because its design sensibility is superior—indeed, its imagery is shot through with "spiritual significance." The church should take a hint and, instead of focusing solely on its written mission statements, devote some energy to design. Starbucks understands that people hunger for "authentic experience." Finally, just as people like to drink coffee together, people seek community and connection in religious settings. Sweet's bottom line? Christianity must move beyond rational, logical apologetics, and instead find ways of showing people that it can offer "symbols and meaningful engagement." This whimsical and insightful book offers a fresh approach to a topic of perennial interest. (Apr. 17)
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Review

Praise for
The Gospel According to Starbucks®

“Cultural barista Leonard Sweet serves up a triple venti cup of relevant insights to wake up decaffeinated Christians. Careful, the book you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot.”
–Ben Young, pastor, author of Why Mike’s Not a Christian

“Reading this book is a caffeine jolt. Get ready to be accelerated into the future, with Jesus a central part of the experience.”
–Dan Kimball, pastor, author of The Emerging Church and They Like Jesus, But Not the Church  

“The Gospel According to Starbucks® inspires us to quit playing safe and mediocre lives and to fulfill our God-given potential. Leonard Sweet uncovers God’s purpose for people not just as individuals but also as communities. An outstanding and thought-provoking book.”
–Paul McGee, international speaker, best-selling author of S.U.M.O. (Shut Up, Move On®)

“I have a massive passion for passion. It’s my favorite spiritual topic. And I have a nominal coffee obsession, Starbucks being my ritual more often than not. So what a treat to read Leonard Sweet’s extra-shot weaving together of the two–all in the hope that each of us will drink in the meaningful and passion-filled life we were designed for.”
–Mark Oestreicher, president of Youth Specialties

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press (January 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578566495
• ISBN-13: 978-1578566495
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Len Sweet was born of a mixed marriage: his mother was a fiery Pilgrim Holiness-ordained preacher from the mountains of West Virginia and his quiet father a Free Methodist lay leader from the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. After a deconversion at 17, when Len set about less sowing wild oats than planting prairies, he became an atheist intellectual and scholar dedicated to exposing the nincompoopery and poppycockery, if not tomfoolery and skullduggery of all religions. After this seven-year period of liminality, Len came back to the faith of his ancestors, where he has been ever since, exploring the "insterstices" and "semiotics" of religion, culture and history. He uses two words to describe himself: semiotician and interstitial. In other words, he is obsessed with two questions: "Where have you been?" and "Where are you going?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Praise the Latte!, January 26, 2007

By 

lighten_up_already2 "lighten_up_already2" (Kirkland, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion (Paperback)

This book is like a grande cup of foam with a shot of espresso at the bottom. If you slurp your way through the froth, you'll find a taste or two of genuine wisdom along the way.

And, Sweet does get a few good "shots" in.

Page 33. "And in a worst-coffee country, where were you served the worst of the worst? The church."

Right on! Many churches could benefit from being places that just served a decent cup of coffee on Sunday morning. Still, many church leaders don't seem to understand this.

Or, better yet, let people eat donuts and drink coffee in church! Great idea! (page 145).

Page 57. Great shot at Thomas Kinkade paintings! Why are they not beautiful, only pretty? Sweet tells us why.

But oh the frothy foam of verbiage I had to pour through my skull to get those little tastes of cerebral stimulation!

At times I wondered if Sweet and I lived on the same planet. On page 104 Sweet writes, "Every Starbucks store is different, but the Starbucks image is the same wherever you go..." Really? Actually, I've lived in the Starbucks' homeland all my life and I've been to a lot of Starbucks restaurants, and I can tell you they're mostly all practically identical. Starbucks is the McDonalds of espresso.

Some of it was just plain embarrassing, like on page 24 where Sweet really wants to use the word for excrement that starts with "S", but he substitutes the dog breed Shih Tzu. So he uses the word without using the word. This guy is clever!

But most of the rest was the same stuff that many Christian authors have been writing about for years. Yes, Christianity is something that is supposed to be experienced, not "gone to" on Sunday mornings. Yes, Christianity needs community to thrive, not just "religious convictions confirmed from the pulpit" (page 132).

Does reading the same stuff that so many other Christian motivational types have written and said suddenly become a refreshing experience when its packaged in a Starbucks wrapper? Nope. This coffee's been sittin' on the back burner for quite a while.

Finally, the chapter I was waiting for just wasn't there. After Sweet spent 150 pages on what reads like a caffeine fueled ra ra rant about how Christianity should be more like Starbucks, I wanted to read a description of exactly what a "Starbucks church" would be like. How would this work? That's not there. However, there is about the best short history of coffee that I've ever read, and that's something I suppose.

So, if you are a new Christian, or you haven't read many books on "what's wrong with the church and how to fix it", you might find this book stimulating. Having been exposed to this kind of stuff for years, I found it to be more of the same with a new gimmick.

Or to put it another way, I paid the equivalent of three grande lattes, but what I got could be easily contained in a demitasse cup.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grande Mocha, extra hot, March 17, 2007

By 

Stephan R. Breon (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion (Paperback)

Len Sweet builds on the delight of a great cup of coffee by showing how the church might capture some of the flavor, heat and zest discovered in a Starbucks store. The metaphore is worth exploring. Why should the church always take secondary places to the vitality present in culture? Read the Gosple According to Starbucks and you will find fresh insights for communicating the gospel in dynamic and relevant ways. Once again Len Sweet stokes grande passion for Christ.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Flawed Analysis, June 21, 2008

By 

Stephen Engram - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion (Paperback)

As with many who are in the emergent movement they know there are issues within the church and often are correct in their identification of them. (Though you wonder how so many of them could have the same, incredibly bad experiences - I have seen and participated in some real authentic, Christ following fellowships and would think there has to be a few more out there). Anyway, my issue is with their solutions. Instead of returning to the Bible for how to do church (Acts, Pastoral Epistles), they turn to modern thinking and strategies for solutions that will only lead the church into more error and problems. In fact, I find it interesting that though the book was written not that long ago that today Starbucks is in trouble as a company and looking to find their magic again. Not sure how to fix Starbucks, but scripture gives us clear understanding of how a church will prosper.