As I sit writing this I am (of course) sipping a cup of Starbucks iced coffee that I've heated up, and the playlist inspired by this book is painting my atmosphere with the theme song from Central Perk. Hang on I gotta take a sip...Ahh! Sweet bitterness.
I love coffee. I am also one of those people who get really into an experience. It's not enough to just watch a basketball game, I want to go play. Same with baseball, but let's not kid ourselves. So in reading this book I have become officially addicted to caffeine. Tea and coffee mostly. And here's the deal. I dont even feel bad. I dont even care. So you can keep the diatribe to yourself, because I fully intend to keep the drip in this IV going.
This book is really good. Leonard Sweet can sometimes lose you in his rhetoric, but not here. He makes a plain and simple point that most of us can connect with since most of us have been to Starbucks, love it or hate it. His argument is that what this coffee company has achieved is less about product and more about Experience, Participation, Iconic Images, and Connectivity. All things the church should offer on a silver platter.
A few ramblings about the sensory experience and a few thoughts on historical Christianity, Sweet draws on some of the rather unorthodox business ideas of successful companies and shows how they have robbed the language of faith and have become what religious ideologies have left behind. The human need for this type of existence is still alive and well, and we're going to achieve it one way or another. I agree with Sweet that the church has traded emotional rationale for rationality itself almost completely devoid of any experience or view of, participation with, or connectivity to God.
I smell every book I read. This book has an aroma.
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