. . . in my coffee. And while I'm at it, no coffee either.
Getting close to the end of my to-do list as we get close to the relaunch. With ten days left there's been but one decision plaguing me the past few weeks. I've been mulling it over, researching it, exploring all the angles, doing everything short of praying about it. The dilemma:
Whether or not to serve coffee on Sunday nights at Echo.
It's interesting that coffee has become a staple of worship gatherings while communion has been moved to a side room or removed entirely. I have yet to see a new church that doesn't serve the beverage and most advertise it above all other strengths. A few churches go that extra mile and serve Starbucks to show that they're not cheap about it.
Now I'm not against serving coffee, per se, but right now it's not feasible. Because we're meeting in a 80+ year-old church, we're limited by the layout. The only place we could set up a station from which to serve coffee is in the lobby. This lobby wasn't made to hold many people; it's probably capable of supporting 20 adults comfortably. If we robbed enough space to set up a coffee area, we'd create an inhibitive environment where people felt claustrophobic. So it would be defeating the entire purpose that people cite for serving coffee in the first place [to make people feel comfortable].
So we'll be countercultural and go sans coffee. That's not to say that we'll never serve it, but there's no need for us to force the issue now just to be like everyone else. We've got to work with what we have. If we miss out on visitors because we don't serve coffee, we're more screwed than I ever could've imagined.
And people are more than welcome to bring whatever beverage they'd like into service [well, almost whatever. No Jagermeister] but we're not going to offer any. Sorry.
There's a new Mother Nature takin' over.