If you were to ask me when I was a kid and first started getting into coffee, “Do you like coffee,” I would have said, “I love it!” But as I look back, I think what I really loved was sugar and cream and a little bit of coffee mixed in. But the longer that I drink coffee, the more I crave pure coffee without all the enhancements mixed in. I was thinking about this one day, and I think it illustrates the process that the Apostle Paul describes as progression in the life of a believer.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:1, “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belong to this world, or as though you were infants in Christ.” Here’s an interesting perspective: “I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food because you weren’t ready for anything stronger.” Isn’t that interesting?
Two little observations I made as I read this:
- Every Christian experiences a spiritual progression from milk to meat, from spiritual infancy to maturity. As pastors, we are all trying to help people grow from spiritual babies to full-grown followers of Jesus. And milk in this verse comes from the word “gala,” which means “the basics.” It’s the elemental teachings of Christianity. But the meat, the “brahma,” it is much deeper. It is the more complete teachings of God’s Word.
- We need to be as aware as Paul was of who he was talking to and where they were in their walk with Jesus. We have to get good at recognizing where people are. It should be our goal as a leader in the family of God to help people move from milk to maturity.
I believe we should be like spiritual baristas, putting on the apron of humility and saying, “Hey, I’m here to help you connect with God in a spiritual way.”
When I first got to taste coffee, I was with my Papa Jim Cameneti. Very Italian man. He loved his coffee black, almost gritty and thick. He said, “Come over here, boy. Try some of this. It’ll put some hair on your chest.” And it absolutely did, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I think we do that with others sometimes. We may be sharing the message of the gospel, but we’re doing it in a way that can hinder the message from actually being received. It’s an idea we’re trying to share, not an argument we’re trying to win, right? We’re trying to win the person! That’s why our approach is really important.
I have lived many moments where it was possible for me to win an argument but lose a relationship. When we’re trying to hold to the truth, we can come across too strong at times. We need to remember that for every mile of road, there are two miles of ditch. On the other side, if we try to make the gospel more palatable and easier for people to receive, we can actually water down the Word of God. It’s like threading a needle here. We want to be holding to the truth and not compromising, but we don’t want to love the truth so much that we forget to love people in the process.
Now, I’m no expert when it comes to the process of decaffeination, but I can tell you that it involves taking a bean and rinsing it over and over again. And the wild thing about decaf coffee is it looks and tastes similar, but it lacks the power and punch of regular coffee. The same can happen to our relationships with God. Paul talked about this in 2 Timothy 3:5, “They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that.” My prayer is that in our churches, we will never raise decaf disciples. We should want them to be fully caffeinated Christians, following Jesus with an all-in passion. To get them to that place, we can’t come on too strong or water down the message.
You know, when Believers Church was turning forty, we looked back and asked ourselves where we saw the most fruit. We didn’t see it correlating directly to weekend services or street evangelism. We saw it most in one-on-one conversations. Small group settings. Conversations over coffee. That’s where our growth came from. And that’s when I started to realize the power of a cup of coffee. It provided the opportunity to disciple people, and it was far more effective than trying to disciple them through a message from the stage.
Jesus taught us to disciple through relationship. He showed us the gospel moves at the speed of relationships. I think it was Chris Hodges who said that more than thirty of the forty recorded times Jesus ministered began with a pre-existing relationship. In other words, someone who knew Jesus brought Jesus to their friend or brought their friend to Him. “Come, see the Man who changed my life!” If that was the case in Jesus’ ministry, do you see the same in your ministry? I know I do.
I had an awesome youth pastor named Mark Pegley. He was brilliant at looking into your eyes and speaking to the gift he saw in you. He would call it out of you. He showed me that we can advance God’s kingdom one cup of coffee at a time. And if you don’t like coffee, maybe it’s one burrito at a time!
We’re one coffee away from showing we care. In the ministry context, when people are walking through hard things, the best way we can minister to them is to get across the table at a coffee shop from them, have them in our living room, and just ask good questions and then minister to them how the Holy Spirit leads.
We’re one coffee away from resolving a conflict. Maybe the offense happened in a connect group, small group, or on a volunteer team. Instead of working through the conflict, the person just moves to a different small group. They stop serving or they go to another church. I think it’s because in their heart they believe the lie our culture tells us that conflict is bad, that there’s no good that can come from it. The reality is when you do conflict God’s way, like Matthew 18 says, you can actually win a brother. A cup of coffee can facilitate that healing, and the relationship can be stronger than ever before.
We’re one coffee away from building our team. If we’re only waiting on people to go through our growth track class, then we’re only ever going to add to our ministry. But if we want to multiply our ministry impact, we have to build relationships with people. Anytime I look to recruit someone to lead a new project, or anytime we see an area we need to fill, the best way to identify talented, godly people who have our heart and vision is to look at the people we’ve built the most relationship with.
We’re one coffee away from solving our problem. I’ve never met a problem that a good coffee can’t solve. You get around the table and you start to talk and dream together, and God will use it. Our goal in care, conflict resolution, and spiritual development should be to take the relational approach.
We’re one coffee away from changing someone’s perspective. In all my years on the planet, I have never had anyone change my mind through a comment on Facebook or Instagram. Not once. And I’ve never changed anybody’s mind through a comment, but I have through a coffee. How? Relationship earned me the right to speak into their life.
We’re one coffee away from being the Church, helping people take their next step, creating clarity, building a relationship, and sharing the gospel.
One last thought. Jesus worked relationally with His inner circle. He had three: Peter, James, and John. And He spent the majority of His time with them. He poured into them the most. But He also had the twelve. He poured into them quite a bit. And then He had the seventy-two, which He poured into somewhat less. And His circle kept expanding outward. This shows us that Jesus knew the mission was too big for one person to handle. He had to multiply Himself in other people.
Can you just imagine if you had a small army of people who were living out this relational approach to ministry? It doesn’t mean you’d have to have six different coffee meetings a week. Our goal is one coffee a week. We meet with two people in our volunteer teams every month, just to pastor and love on them. And then we look in the lobby (or out in the wild, so to speak) for others we can add to our relational circle. It’s amazing how much that yields in the way of people joining your church and becoming volunteers.
Robert Madu said, “God did not call us to change people but to love people and let Him do the changing.” So accept this friendly reminder, Pastor, that they will know we are Christ’s disciples by our love one for another. People need Jesus. They don’t need more judgment. They need mercy. And when they start to encounter Jesus through us, they find the truth, and the truth sets them free. I hope that inspires you to book a coffee meeting with someone this week. Someone out there is waiting for your invitation.
This blog was created using content from the webinar Webinar: One Coffee Away: How to Reach People Through Relationship
