David Morris sells coffee. His company, Dillanos, sells mostly wholesale. And they are, apparently, quite good. David talks about how hard they work to help their customers, retail coffee shoppes, succeed. He talks about their company purpose: Help People, Make Friends, Have Fun!

I was listening to David talking while I was driving to work. At a church. And I realized that the idea of making disciples that Jesus talked about has something in common with David’s approach to coffee. And even more than that, the role that I’m called to needs to resemble David’s work more.

David’s job isn’t to serve coffee. It’s to give the coffee servers great resources. To pay amazing attention to the roasting process, to be as consistent as possible with the taste and with the delivery.

But the coffee house has to work hard, too. To take the beans and connect them to the people in the barista’s community, not the roaster’s community. To get to know the needs and likes of the community around the coffee house. To appreciate the stories of the roasting company and to share them.

It’s tempting for me to try to serve coffee. To think that’s my job. But it’s not. Pastors are called to equip, to provide resources for living and believing, to remind the people in their care what the stories mean. To quote David, “to help people, to make friends, to have fun.” 

I had a new image of church while I was listening to David. Rather than thinking of a theatre with a show and an audience, I started thinking of people coming to pick up a sack of coffee beans and heading back to their coffee cart, set up in a hospital, by a factory, in a mall. Helping people, making friends, having fun.