Online Spaces and Third Places: What the Starbucks Rebuild Tells Us About Digital Ministry

Howard Schultz, the former CEO (and ostensible founder) of Starbucks, famously described the coffee chain as a "third place." In his vision, Starbucks was to be a place of communal gathering beyond the home and the workplace, a place to cultivate a sense of warmth, connection, and belonging. For much of its history, Starbucks designed stores aligned to this philosophy.

Large tables. Overstuffed chairs. Handwritten names on paper cups. Even the self-serve counter for milk, cream, and sugar promoted a sense of connection and interaction. Starbucks was a place of conversation and gathering. A place to conduct business or to catch up with friends. A place to read a novel or relax with your co-workers. Starbucks was able to sell its beverages at a premium price point in part because of the inviting amenities of its stores. The brand became an "everyday luxury" not just because of the coffee, but because of the subjective, and even sentimental, experience of lingering within a cafe.

But then in 2009, Starbucks launched its mobile app, beginning a journey away from the third place philosophy. 5 years later, Starbucks implemented order-ahead technology, allowing customers to bypass the line, skip the small talk, and obtain their extravagantly customized beverage from a to-go counter.

As mobile orders became increasingly common, cafes became a place not of conversation but of commerce. Starbucks decreased space for tables and seating, preferring open concepts to comfortable furnishings. Floorplans began to emphasize an efficient online ordering experience over lengthy lingering. Up until recently, the app-based strategy paid off handsomely. Some estimate that the Starbucks app accounts for over 30% of the cafe's orders. Customers pre-load cash into the app, effectively giving Starbucks an interest-free loan. Today, Starbucks boasts over two billion dollars of unused cash from customer app accounts, making the coffee chain a larger banker than most mid-sized American banks.

And then inflation hit. Even the most loyal Starbucks customer began to question the value of an $8 latte. As coffee drinkers balked at the price points, they also grew increasingly agitated at the in-store experience: the lack of seating. Barristas overworked from excessively customized orders. The confusion over how, when, and where to obtain one's beverage.

Same-store sales began to shrink. The stock price declined. Former CEO Howard Shultz lambasted the technological nature of Starbucks' business as an "achilles heel." Today, Starbucks is undertaking a substantial rebuild, guided by the former CEO of Chipotle, as it seeks to create a hybrid of third space community and digital age efficiency. Promising "more personal" cafes, Starbucks will look to rebuild their brand in a way that accommodates both the hurried app user and the relaxed table dweller.

The more I read about the Starbucks rebuild, the more I recognize that the challenges confronting Starbucks are the very same dilemmas confronting today's church.

How and when does an institution accommodate a faster-moving, technology-driven culture? How and when does an institution push back on acceleration and digitization?

How does an institution remain rooted in its foundations and its convictions, even when those convictions are unconventional? How does an institution revisit its foundations and reexamine its convictions?

How does a leader balance financial stewardship of an organization with the commitment towards community and human connection?

The digital transformation of Starbucks’ business is a necessity, as are the church's experiments with digital ministry.

For Starbucks, the digital transformation was about reaching an increasingly mobile, time-strapped coffee drinker. For the church, digital ministry is about equipping people for lives of faithful services, even beyond the walls of the sanctuary. Even though digital experimentation is crucial, both organizations must maintain their distinct characteristics, like nurturing meaningful connections among their communities. Despite the necessity of digital innovation, both institutions must learn to thoughtfully preserve what made them distinctive: the experience of meaningful connection with those gathered around the table.

I never would have thought that today's church shares so much in common with the world's 120th-largest for-profit corporation. But next time I step into a coffee shop to order a cold brew and an iced chai, I won't just be observing the making of the beverage. I'll be looking at how an institution balances change and continuity, velocity and values. As there’s no easy solution to this balancing act, we in the church just might observe something that we can learn from. Starbucks may not get any of it right. Not all of their learnings can or should be imported into the church. But they'll be engaged in a similar thought process to that of the ecclesiastical world. And that’s worth paying attention to.

In the church, we’re called to convene a different kind of table and share a different kind of cup. Still, there's something that we might be able to learn when we reach the bottom of our next cup of coffee.

Learning How to Listen in a Digital Age

I recently read Timothy Egan's "A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith." The travelogue depicts a multi-leveled journey. On one level, there is a physical trek through contemporary Europe. A a deeper level, there is a spiritual trek through Europe's Christian heritage. As Egan walks, he grapples with his own beliefs and faith commitments. Full of honesty and candor, Egan sets out to hear the voice of God amidst the frenetic pace of his experience. The book is captivating, raw, and poetic.

As he starts his walk from England to Italy on The Via Francigena, he encounters the first directive in The Rule of St. Benedict: "Listen." It is to be the watchword of his journey.

Again and again, Egan recalls the importance of listening to the Christian faith. Drawing upon the scriptures and the rules of St Benedict, the writings of the apostles and the teachings of Pope Francis, the book emphasizes how utterly essential listening is to a life of faith.

As I read Egan's memoir, I am struck by how he managed to re-connect to his faith. It was not through reason or logic as Augustine might instruct, nor through tradition, as some clerics might teach. He does not find his spiritual footing through attendance at mass or worship (in his memoir, he opts to skip such services when invited). Rather, the author found spiritual sustenance through silently walking the lonely passages of the Via Francigena. Clearly there is something to be said about how intentional, active listening makes us more likely to notice what God is up to in our midst.

Is it any wonder, then, that one's faith often feels contested in this digital age, a time defined by more noise, fewer conversations, and constant context switching?

Even when I try to be completely intentional about my listening, I am interrupted by texts and emails, Slack notifications and news alerts. I find it challenging to listen to members of my own family - let alone the voice of the divine!

But it's not just interruption that inhibits our willingness to listen.

It's that digital technology actively takes away opportunities to practice listening to one another. As digital tools for collaboration become more sophisticated and AI advances, I am able to work asynchronously and independently with increasing ease. The conversations and interactions I would have once required to solve a problem can now be solved through interaction with AI. The alignment I need with collaborators and co-workers can now be solved through updates and notifications on apps like Trello, JIRA, and Asana. Thus my week involves fewer actual discussions, fewer opportunities to listen.

Listening is also made more difficult by the expanding items on our to-do list. As AI and digital workplace tools make us more productive (at least in theory), we are expected to take on a more expansive set of commitments. If these tools reduce the weekly hours required for Project A from 40 to 20, then the supervisor will soon add Projects B and C to our list. And while these projects might not add more hours to our workweek, they will certainly add to our cognitive load. That's because a wider set of tasks on my list requires me to rapidly change contexts from one deliverable to the next. The pace of work in the digital age might not require us to work more hours. But it always requires us to pack more into the hours we work. This way of working depletes our capacity for focus and listening.

This isn't to say we shouldn't use AI or digital collaboration tools. These resources can remove much of the drudgery of our work lives, freeing us up to spend less time on mindless, rote tasks. If using an app like Monday.com or Confluence means I get back the hours I spend in tedious project update meetings I will gladly partake. If digital tools allow me to work remotely, to spend more time with family, than I'll gladly accept their requisite pings and dings. Simple unplugging is not the solution to the challenge of listening in contemporary culture.

Instead, we should return to Benedict's command to Listen.

I've heard it said that listening involves both "listening to respond" and "listening to understand." The former is a faster, more common form of listening, while the latter is more empathetic and relational. Yet I would suggest that these two levels of listening are not enough for what the life of faith demands.

Faith in a digital age is about listening to discern. That's the type of listening that Timothy Egan discovered while hiking the Via Francigena. And while most of us won't attempt a trans-continental pilgrimage, this type of listening afforded by the pilgrimage or other forms of contemplative practice can be a balm to the distracted souls of the digital age. Perhaps, then, growing in our faith isn't about believing more ardently, or praying more consistently, or attending church more regularly. Maybe its simply about learning how to listen.

2024 in a Tech-Shaped Culture: 5 New Year's Resolution for The Church

Happy New Year!

As we turn the page to another year, here are five resolutions that I hope the church can keep in the months ahead. Each of these resolutions addresses or aligns with the values that shape our tech-shaped culture (values that I wrote about in "Grace and Gigabytes").

Resolution 1: Preach More Lived Stories and Fewer Theological Abstractions

Secularization has accelerated. Church attendance has plummetted. Belief in the trasncendent, let alone the dogma of organized religion, is constantly contested. In this default context of fragmentation and disbelief, the church cannot afford to preach the language of abstraction.

What is abstraction?

Abstraction is a claim about God that is made without a supporting story, example, or illustration.

In the year ahead, let's resolve to tilt the balance in our preaching towards to the lived stories of God's work in our contexts. Let's resolve to proclaim so many lived stories in our context that we discern a common "watch word," or statement of how God shows up in the particulars of our time and place.

Resolution 2: Enrich In-Person Conversations through Digital Content

As we continue to move beyond the pandemic, live streaming has become less appealing as a regular worship habit. According to Gallup, only 5% of Americans are attending services remotely.

Still, digital ministry will continue to serve as the front door to visitors and guests, necessitating that we continue to offer online worship.

What will happen to digital ministry? We might shift to a content-supported model of digital ministry, in which we create and distribute digital content in service to furthering the dialogues started through our liturgies. We might move from events (streaming worship, for example) to posts and stories that enrich our understanding of a topic and expand our theological imagination. This is the model we've tested at Good Shepherd with "Conversation Sundays" - discussions that start in worship and are furthered through digital content in the week ahead.

Resolution 3: Make Space for AI Experimentation

AI is a once-in-a-generation technological leap. AI will shape our culture, and how our culture makes meaning, in ways that we can only begin to imagine. This new technology will inevitably change not just how we execute tasks but how we process information - how we come to learn something, how we come to believe in something.

It's no exaggeration. AI will change what it means to have faith.

The church cannot sit by idly and observe the AI disruption. We must be active experimenters. From creating digital content based on sermon manuscripts to writing newsletters with chatbots, from using ChatGPT to help us articulate personal faith stories to using text to image generators for our newsletter and website, we must resolve to voraciously experiment with these new tools.

Resolution 4: Teach Tech Sabbath as a Spiritual Practice

Just as AI has the potential to be used for purposeful ministry, it can also create a vicious cycle that further retrenches us in digital isolation. As AI creates better content it will command more of our focus. As it consumes more of our attention, we become more enmeshed in the content of our screens.

Tech Sabbath, whether practiced regularly for an hour or for an entire day of the week, is the defiant claim that these vicious cycles do not have ultimate power over my being. To practice a Tech Sabbath is to remember that we are created for much more than digital consumption.

Resolution 5: Model Gratitude as a Leadership Practice

I recently heard Professor Tom Thibodeau define servant leadership in three parts. Prof. Thibodeau suggested that the first job of a leader is to define reality. The second job of a leader is to say thank you. Everything in between is service.

We live in a world where gratitude is missing - or where it is so shallow and superficial that it loses all meaning. When our technology accelerates our communication, we tend to jettison that which is most essential: expressions of thanks, and articulations of our stories. Each is fundamental to the formation of trust. Yet both become increasingly absent the faster we move.

In the year ahead, let's resolve to model how to set aside the drive towards productivity to give meaningful thanks for the service we receive, and to give thanks for those who serve at our side.

In all contexts, in any forums, we are called to partake in the spiritual practice of gratitude in ways that are deep, meaningful, and enriching.

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@ryanpanzer would like to wish everyone a Blessed 2024!

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