When Third Place Is the Right Place

Colossians 3:12-17   |   12/28/2003

If our first place is home and our second place is work, what’s our third place?

Victoria Bruce wrote her novel, No Apparent Danger, in the bay window of a café in Annapolis, Maryland.

After it was published last year, she gave the owner a copy of the book, inscribing it with her thanks for the office space she’d used for the price of a latte.

Eric Funk frequented the same café, the City Dock Café, along with Navy midshipmen, sockless sailors, wandering tourists and state-government types. He used the space every morning to work on math problems. When he moved to Colorado, he also thanked the owner, telling him that the café had been like a second home for three years.

Home is a good thing. Home for the holidays. But home is not the only thing.
In fact, sometimes family closeness gets just a little too close, especially during the holidays. After a few days of togetherness — right about now, three days after Christmas — many of us would probably welcome a little time away from home.

That second place, home being the first place, is usually work. At work we form friendships, socialize and spend a considerable chunk of the week. It’s a place where we practice our vocation and participate in a community of colleagues.

But home and work are not enough. Sometimes we need to get away from work.

We need a third place.

No one understands this better than Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks.

Schultz founded Starbucks on the premise that Americans are missing a third place in their lives — a place that his coffeehouses can fill.

While on a business trip to Italy, Schultz discovered that Italians were living remarkably balanced lives. He was impressed by the passion they brought to their work, their rest and their enjoyment, and he noticed that a great deal of enjoyment was being found in the camaraderie and community of Italy’s 200,000 coffee bars. Because there was nothing similar in the United States, Schultz began to dream of establishing Italian-influenced third places where people could congregate. He hoped that after the first place of home and the second place of work, Americans would come to consider his coffeehouses to be their third place, a place to experience camaraderie and genuine community.

He understood that in America, as well as in Italy, it’s not about coffee, it’s about connection.

That’s the Starbucks Principle. And for many, it seems to be working.

The question we need to ask ourselves is: How can we introduce the church, not the coffeehouse, as a third place where community and connection take place. Why isn’t the church serving as a third place for many of our neighbors today? Why aren’t we creating a community marked by the qualities lifted up by Paul in his letter to the Colossians?

After all, it’s hard to resist “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). It’s difficult for people to turn away from “love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (v. 14). And if we did “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (v. 17), we’d have a long line outside our door.

A church with a frappuccino faith like this is going to make a connection with the community.

So what is the Starbucks Principle, and how can it teach our congregation to offer connection and community? Billy Coburn, writing in the Strategic Adult Ministries Journal, offers some insights into how churches can learn from coffee-centered cafés of community.

First, take seriously the deep human hunger for a third place. Howard Schultz has given people an inviting, stimulating, soulful environment; he has offered them a place to enjoy community and camaraderie within the attractively decorated walls of Starbucks. Are we doing the same within the walls of our church? Are we being inviting, open and inclusive of all people, or are we behaving in ways that are exclusive and isolationist?

Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. These qualities are irresistible, and they should fill the air of our congregation, like the intoxicating aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. Any other smell is going to drive people away.

People are more hungry for an inviting third place than ever before. In his book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg writes that, due in part to the suburbanization of modern cities, “we do not have that third realm of satisfaction and social cohesion beyond the portals of home and work that for others is an essential element of the good life.” Our neighbors crave a place of satisfaction and social cohesion — it’s something they need at the very deepest levels of their hearts and souls.

The question is: Will they find it here? Or only at Starbucks?

Second, remember that “everything matters.” Starbucks pays attention to detail, and it desperately wants to meet people’s needs for enjoyment. It’s hard to have a bad experience at Starbucks, given the delicious coffee, tasty snacks, lovely decor and comfortable chairs.

Fortunately, there is an almost unlimited supply of people who are in the market for an experience of quality community. We don’t have to be in competition with the congregation down the street, since the majority of Americans today don’t attend any church in a given week. The challenge for us is to remember that “everything matters,” and to draw new people in by caring about their needs and focusing on a broad spectrum of Christian concerns.

“Bear with one another,” advises Paul, but also “forgive each other” (v. 13). Both are important, not just one or the other. “Clothe yourselves with love,” he recommends, and also “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (vv. 14-15). Everything matters in a quality Christian community, not just one issue or concern. Forbearance, forgiveness, love, peace — all are going to be noticed by people looking for a third place, and all are worthy of our attention.

Third, extend the church into the marketplace. Notice that Starbucks cafés aren’t located in isolated areas, but instead are always placed in the middle of the marketplace in high-volume areas. Drive through a congested area, and you are going to see a Starbucks, guaranteed — sometimes two or three.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” implores the apostle Paul; “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” (v. 16).

Paul encourages us to teach and to sing, and those are two things that the marketplace is anxious for us to do. In a world of moral confusion, our neighbors are looking for conversation and guidance about difficult and thorny issues, everything from raising teenagers to responding to terrorism, so the time is right for the church to think creatively about addressing these concerns.

Finally, care about community. Don’t simply care about church attendance figures and the maintenance of this institution. Care about community, and about the filling of needs that people may not even be aware they have. This is what Howard Schultz did, when he opened the first Starbucks to fill an emptiness that people couldn’t even articulate. He gave them a third place before they even knew they needed a third place.

“Whatever you do,” writes Paul to the Colossians, “in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (v. 17). If we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, we will surely meet the needs of our neighbors, because our neighbors are desperately in need of Jesus Christ. Whether they can articulate it or not, they have a hunger for Jesus in their lives — they long for Immanuel, God with us, the One Eternal God in human form. They need a Savior to bring them forgiveness and new life, and a Lord to lead them through the twists and turns of daily existence. What they require, whether they realize it or not, is a community of Christ-followers that can function as their third place, because only a community centered on Christ can help them to make sense of their first two places, their homes and their workplaces.

In the new year to come we’re challenged to give our neighbors an adventure of hope and discovery — a Christ experience, not a coffee experience — although many churches offer both. We can do this through respecting the human hunger for a third place, remembering that everything matters, extending the church into the marketplace and always caring about community.

We need more than coffee grounds. We need Christ grounds — everything the apostle Paul has described in these few words: love, gratitude, teaching, singing, joy.

Offer this as a third place, and the church will be a source of “customer” satisfaction that no Starbucks can ever reach.

Participation Pointers:
• Modify your coffee strategy for this Sunday. If it is offered after the worship service, offer it before instead. Grind the coffee in the narthex or wherever you set up so that the aroma fills your worship space. This will prepare the congregation for your explanation of coffee as a metaphor for connection and community.

• Offer the thoughts above in the form of a dialogue sermon in which you and another colleague or lay person discuss the appeal of the Starbucks coffeehouses. Perhaps you could study the material above and each of you take two of the four principles.

Source:
Coburn, Billy. “Cafés of community: the Starbucks principle.” Strategic Adult Ministries Journal (Vol. 18, No. 5, Issue 145), 8-9.

Commentary

The idea of physical ritual contamination, in both Judaism and Greco-Roman religions, was pervasive throughout the Mediterranean world in which Christianity arose, and its influence remained a source of division and confusion in the earliest Christian communities for several generations. Today’s reading from Colossians, 3:12-17, is one of several attempts in the New Testament to address this problem by reminding the hearers of the letter that the new life they live in Christ has nothing to do with physical contamination and everything to do with dispositions of the will and affections.

Our lesson is part of a larger section of the letter (3:1-17), which concerns the type of lifestyle appropriate for those who have laid claim to the promise of a new life in Christ. (The letter falls naturally into two main sections, the first dealing with doctrine, 1:1-3:4, and the second concerned with practical application, 3:5-4:18.) Those who have entered that new life are described in the opening verse of our passage as God’s “chosen ones” (v. 12). The idea of being divinely chosen is, of course, ancient, and forms the axis along which the thought of the Hebrew Bible is arranged. The specific term “chosen ones” is not especially common in the Hebrew Bible, notwithstanding the pervasiveness of the idea, and the term is applied in the book of Psalms (where it is found almost exclusively) to the descendants of Abraham (or “children of Jacob”), i.e., the Israelites (e.g., Psalm 105:6 = 1 Chronicles 16:13; Psalm 105:43; Psalm 106:5).

The term is found once in the intertestamental literature (Tobit 8:15), and only once in the New Testament apart from our passage, in Luke 18:7, as part of Jesus’ parable about the unjust judge and the importunate widow (Luke 18:1-8), where the expression is embedded in an eschatological context and appears to be a quotation from an Old Testament source.

The idea of being divinely chosen, either by God or by Jesus, is predicated on the notion of the prior gracious action of the divine, to which human action is a response, not an initiative. This point is made clear in such passages as Deuteronomy 7:7 and especially in John 6:70; 15:16. Chosenness, like creation, is a biblical concept rooted both in primordial time (see, e.g., Ephesians 1:4) and in end time (e.g., Mark 13:20, another eschatological context). The divine election of both Jews and Christians is meant to explain the incongruity between the unpromising natural condition of those chosen with their spiritually exalted mission, on the one hand, and, on the other, to provide support and encouragement to those facing opposition, trial or persecution for the sake of that mission. It is the latter function that the idea serves in our passage.

Those chosen are described further as “holy and beloved,” combining in a double phrase two concepts found extensively elsewhere, but brought together in a single concept only here. (See, for example, on Israel as God’s holy people, Deuteronomy 28:9; Isaiah 62:12; 63:18; Daniel 12:7; Wisdom 10:15; 3 Maccabees 2:6; etc. For the chosen people [or individuals] being beloved, see, e.g., Deuteronomy 33:12; Psalm 127:2; Isaiah 22:4; etc.) The word translated “saints” in the letter’s salutation (1:2) is literally “holy ones,” who are described also as “beloved” in 1:7.

That the Colossians are advised to “clothe” themselves with various spiritual attributes (v. 12) is a continuation of the imagery of putting off and putting on the new life in Christ introduced in verses 9-10. It is one of several images the author uses to describe the new orientation to life experienced by those who have accepted the gospel (others including “rooted and built up,” 2:7; “circumcised with a spiritual circumcision,” 2:11; “with Christ you died,” 2:20; “raised with Christ,” 3:1). In all these passages, the emphasis is on the response of the hearers to the spiritual transformation that marks their new identity as “God’s chosen” (cf 1:10; 2:6; 4:5).

The author of the letter (who is unlikely to have been Paul, despite the traditional attribution) is fond of lists, as evidenced in the string of virtues found in verse 12: “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Other lists in the letter are found at 2:21, 23; 3:5, 8, 11, 16; 3:18-4:1; 4:7. Lists were common rhetorical devices in nonbiblical as well as biblical writings of the period, and they often took the form of collections of stereotyped or conventional items. None of the attributes in the list in verse 12 is unusual or rare, and some of the terms (e.g., patience, 1:11) have already been introduced in the letter.

In verses 13 and 16, there is some textual variation in the designation of the divine. The editors of the Greek text used by the NRSV chose the word Lord () over the alternatives (“Christ,” “God” and “God in Christ”) on the basis of the Alexandrian and Western manuscript evidence, as well as the reasoning that at least the last of the alternatives appears to have been introduced under the influence of Ephesians (4:32), the book with which Colossians has the strongest literary affinity. In verse 16, the expression “word of Christ” is unusual (appearing only here), which may have appeared so peculiar to some scribes that they assumed an error and corrected to the more usual “word of God/the Lord.” The more difficult reading, which has strong manuscript support, is to be preferred, as also at the end of the verse, where the textus receptus (NRSV’s “other ancient authorities”) substitutes “the Lord” for “God,” again probably under the influence of Ephesians (5:19).

The exhortation reaches its climax in verse 14 (“Above all”) with the injunction to “clothe yourselves with love,” which is the unifying and harmonizing ingredient in the Colossian community. The supremacy of love as the rule and guide for Christian communities is attributed to Jesus himself (e.g., John 13:34; 15:12, 17; 1 John 3:11), and remained foundational for Christian doctrine and practice throughout its formative period (see, e.g., Romans 13:8; 1 Corinthians 13:13; Galatians 5:6). The theme of the importance of love for building up the Christian community has already been introduced in the letter to the Colossians (1:4, 8; 2:12), and it remains the axis around which the other ingredients in the social ethic of early Christianity (such as forbearance and forgiveness, v. 13) arranged themselves.

Similarly, the themes of wisdom and gratitude (vv. 15, 16) run throughout the letter (1:3, 9-10, 12; 2:2-3, 7; 3:10; etc), having been introduced earlier in the argument. Wisdom, in fact, is one of the prominent concerns of the writer, since it is false teaching (2:8, 16-18, 23), propounded as esoteric wisdom by false teachers, which has provoked the writer’s concern and letter.

Animating Illustrations

Signs you’re sick of the holidays:

8. You’ve got red and green bags under your eyes.
7. You’re serving reindeer pot pie.
6. When you hear, “Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’?”, you scream, “No! I’m not listening!”
5. You climb on your roof and start shooting carolers with your air gun.
4. You think you hear your Christmas tree taunting you.
3. Instead of spending time with family, you’re watching some guy make photo-copies.
2. You’ve got eggnog coming out of your ears.
1. Two words: tinsel rash.

Jack was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. The preacher grabbed Jack by the hand and pulled him aside.

The pastor said to him, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!”

Jack replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”

Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”

He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service.”

Come to church and find a place to belong, writes Jane McAlister Pope, the deputy editorial page editor at The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. “Love isn’t an abstract theological concept; it has to be lived out in community. Incredible strength and healing can arise from celebrating one another’s joys and mourning one another’s losses. When relationships break and friendships slip away, this extended family will endure. Doesn’t that outweigh sleeping in on Sunday?”

People can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.

What’s a mannequin church?

The sign on the stage proclaimed: “The Motionless Man: Make Him Laugh. Win $100.” The temptation was irresistible. For three hours, boys and girls, men and women, performed every antic and told every joke they knew. But Bill Fuqua, the Motionless Man, stood perfectly still.

Fuqua is the Guinness Book of World Records champion at doing nothing. He appears so motionless during his routines at shopping malls and amusement parks that he is sometimes mistaken for a mannequin.

Francis Fukuyama captured the ethos of contemporary religiosity in his 1999 book, The Great Disruption: “Instead of community arising as a byproduct of rigid belief, people will return to religious belief because of their desire for community. In other words, people will return to religious tradition not necessarily because they accept the truth of revelation, but because the absence of community and the transience of social ties in the secular world make them hungry for ritual and cultural tradition. They will help the poor or their neighbors not because doctrine tells them they must, but rather because they want to serve their communities and find that faith-based organizations are the most effective ways of doing so.”

—Used by permission of
Francis Fukuyama.

Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, is trying to redefine the American coffeehouse, and by many accounts, he has. With over 1,100 outlets throughout the U.S., Canada and Japan, he has certainly made Starbucks commonplace.

Schultz’s vision of coffee and community was formed during a trip to Italy in 1983. The espresso bars of Milan and Verona were teeming with people stopping in for good coffee and some company. Bring this to the U.S., Schultz thought, and people will definitely come. Already an employee in Starbucks’ marketing department, Schultz pitched his superiors on the coffee bar concept, but they weren’t receptive. Two years later, Schultz tried the concept himself, launching Il Giornale, a handful of Italian-style coffee bars serving the Starbucks brew. With the backing of investors in 1987, Il Giornale purchased Starbucks and Schultz was on his way.

—Elaine Sosa, “A little something about the big ‘S’,” Sally’s Place Web Site, Sallys-place.com. Retrieved May 26, 2003.

“The marketing executives at Starbucks are no fools,” writes Anthony T. Selvaggio in an opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (November 23, 2002). “They are well aware that place conjures up the basic human desires of community, belonging, rest and happiness.” He goes on to point out that Starbucks is not alone in this attempt to “create place” — the restaurant chain Applebee’s attempts to create a local community feel in its restaurants by decorating them with local sports memorabilia and photographs of local places. They want to be your “Neighborhood Grill and Bar,” and, like Starbucks, are hoping to be your “third place.”

But in the end, writes Selvaggio, these corporate efforts to manufacture place fall short of fulfilling our inner desires. Our desire cannot be satisfied with brick and mortar, because our desire for place cannot be satisfied in this world. “Maybe our desire for place is the sign to us that we do not entirely belong to this world,” he concludes. “Maybe it reminds us that we need someone greater than ourselves to prepare a place for us.”

It’s a perfect summer Saturday in Amherst, Massachusetts, and I’m standing in the middle of a labyrinth of eight-foot sunflowers, my sandals sinking in the thick mud that’s the result of a week’s rain. The labyrinth is a lead attraction here at Annie’s Gardening and Gifts, a roadside nursery spread over two and a half acres of farmland, its exterior a sprawling amalgam of gardening and landscaping oddities and various plants. Annie’s sells everything from Celtic crosses to Mexican earthenware stoves to the single rusty scythe that hangs like a museum piece in the greenhouse. The store also has an impish streak. A large sign in front of the garden reads “Annie’s Employee Fitness Center”; and one New England winter, according to employees, the store blazoned the words “Light Comes” from the roof using Christmas lights. After Christmas the message was changed to read, “Light Bill Came” ....

It’s easy to see how Annie’s might attract a clientele of gardening buffs, not to mention labyrinthophiles. But the place has also been the object of scholarly attention. In its efforts to go beyond the profit motive, and draw in “regulars” rather than mere customers, Annie’s serves as a prime example of a so-called “third place,” according to University of West Florida sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg is widely known for his lengthily titled book The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, which has been published in several editions since a first release by Paragon House in 1989, and which Oldenburg says is doing twice as well now as a decade ago. In The Great Good Place, Oldenburg used the term “third place” to describe informal public gathering places, the idea being that our first place is our home, our second is work, and our third is a community hangout where conversation, relaxation and social engagement thrive, and expectations are left at the door.

One key characteristic of third places? Though they may be businesses, like Annie’s, they seek to pull in social as well as financial capital.

—Chris Mooney, “The ‘Third Place’ way,” Common Wealth Web Site, Movingideas.org. Retrieved May 26, 2003.

In an American Demographics article “Choosing my religion” (April 1999), Richard Cimino and Don Lattin point out that while Americans are becoming more religious (in a 1997 Pew Research Center survey, 71 percent of Americans said they “never doubt the existence of God”; up 11 percent from 1987), they are expressing their religiosity in places other than traditional denominations.

To win them back, many mainline churches are employing sophisticated marketing strategies. Some are dropping their denominational names, adopting titles such as “Family Christian Center” for the former First Baptist Church. Others are broadening their reach by including child care, 12-step programs, pop music styles, Guaranteed parking and convenient hours — one California Presbyterian church holds Saturday evening services so “there is plenty of time to go to dinner, the movies, attend a party ....”

One marketing consultant says, “Baby boomers think of churches like they think of supermarkets. They want options, choices and convenience.” However, according to Cimino and Lattin, the thriving congregations are those that offer “a firsthand sense of the sacred, whether it’s a Buddhist meditation retreat or a roof-raising Pentecostal service.”

Children's Sermon

Point to the clothes you are wearing to church, and ask the children if this clothing would be good for playing a game of football, or ice skating, or skiing. Ask why not. Then reach into a shopping bag and pull out some sports clothing, and explain why it is so much better for athletic activities. Stress that wearing the right clothing is very important if you are going to be successful in what you do, whether you are skiing down a mountain, or working in the kitchen, or worshiping God. Point out that the clothes you wear to church are just right for praying and singing and learning — you’d feel very strange if you wore your ski jacket inside the sanctuary! Then tell the children that there is some invisible clothing that Christians are supposed to wear every day, and it is very important to put on if we are going to be successful as Christians. Let them know that Paul says, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness humility, meekness, and patience .... Above all, clothe yourselves with love” (Colossians 3:12, 14). Ask them to imagine covering themselves with compassion, kindness and love, and find out what this feels like. Suggest that this invisible clothing gives them special power to go out and do God’s work in the world. Find out what kinds of things they think they could do with this special outfit, and then encourage them to dress this way every day. Remind them that if they are going to be successful as Christians, they will need to wear these invisible clothes from God every day.

Worship Resources