Something in Return

It was always a delight when the Starbucks Barista would ask me if I wished to fill out an on-line survey about my visit.  I have done a number of these surveys over the years.  It takes about 5 minutes whereby I rate my beverage, the staff, the facility and my purchasing habits.  At the end of the survey I would receive a personalized code which I could write down on my receipt.  This code gifted me with a free beverage/food item of my choosing.  It was a gift of thankfulness and gratitude.  It was a gift that said that the Starbucks Company cared about my feedback, and was willing to invest in my happiness, experience, and loyalty.

Of course it worked.  I would take my receipt back to my local Starbucks and receive a free drink, with one major difference.  With this receipt in hand, I would splurge with my free drink.  See, my normal order is a simple Tall-ToffeeNut-Americano.  Nothing special.  IT only costs me $3.31 (less if I remember to bring a travel mug). Yet on those rare occasions where I would receive a free drink, it was there that I splurged.  My drink would become a Venti-double-shot-extra-hot-non-fat-ToffeeNut-Latte (with whip cream and drizzle on top.)  The gift from Starbucks, then, became quite the large gift.  It became extravagant, spendthrift, and wonderful.

It was different with my last survey however.  Apparently the policy has changed, and Starbucks no longer offers these gifts of gratitude.  When I filled out my survey, the final screen simply said “Thank you for your time.”  This may sound petty, and somewhat whiny, but it is a significant shift. There was no spendthrift gift of extravagant grace.  It almost seemed as if filling out the survey was little more than a duty.  All of a sudden my allegiance to Starbucks took a little bit of a blow; All of a sudden the idea that Starbucks would invest in my experience seemed a little more of a stretch; All of a sudden my desire to fill out an on-line survey evaporated.

Before the Starbucks naysayers begin their derision of the company, allow me to point out that this is not unique to Starbucks.  Tim Horton’s has done the same things with the prizes available during “RRRoll up the Rim to Win.”  Although I personally feel that Tim Horton’s is an abhorrent form of coffee, I would nevertheless switch to drinking Tim’s coffee during the RRRoll-up season.  I would do so because my love for free coffee overwhelms my dislike of bad coffee, and I could reasonably expect that I would secure two or three free coffees along with the odd muffin or two.

But that has changed as well.  Over the past few years, the number of prizes offered has dramatically decreased, along with the odds of winning any said prize.  For the past few years, despite rolling up the rim roughly 4 or 5 times per week, I have yet to win a single roll up prize.  No free coffee.  No donut.  No muffin. My overall total over the past few years is roughly around 2-70.  Frankly, it makes me think the whole thing is a scam.  Interestingly, Tim Horton’s own website dedicated to “RRRoll-up the Rim to Win” (http://www.rolluptherimtowin.com/en/index.php) contains a live twitter feed entitled ‘Share the experience.’  Most of the responses, however, are complaints about lack of wins.  One person tweeted “How sad it is that I’m not O-13 with roll up the rim?  When in reality Im 0-12 cause now you get two chances.”  Another wrote “RRRoll up the Rim to NOT win is what it should be called. #bitter” A multitude of others posted their own statistics:  0-7, 0-13, 0-20, 1-14.

Like the evaporation of desire to fill out a Starbucks survey, the lack of wins makes me feel like I do not want to go out of my way to partake in this national coffee-event.  After all, why spend the money on sub-par coffee if I won’t get anything out of it?

So where is this going?  What does a whiny blog about a lack of free coffee have to do with our life of faith in the Anglican Church?  Well, I think it points us to consider a very important question:  Do people get anything out of worship?  Do our congregations have an experience of individual and personal benefit from attending church?  It seems to me that this may go a long way to address some of the issues of our numerical decline.  Decline in attendance is not because of our structures or service times or the colour of books we are using (if at all). Perhaps the issue that needs to be addressed is the issue of perceived benefit.  Do people today perceive a benefit to belonging to a worshipping body?  When people come to church on Sunday mornings, do they feel enriched, empowered, strengthened, or gifted with God’s care and grace?  Or, like someone who throws money at Tim Horton’s only to receive nothing special at the other end, are people left feeling like the church has not delivered on what was promised?

Obviously, I don’t think this the case for everyone, however it does open up a realm of thinking that the church should engage in.  What is more, the question becomes a bit more pointed when we see things from the leadership side of things, and not as those sitting in the pews.  For those in the leadership side of the church (akin to the corporate elites of Starbucks or Tim Horton’s, the question for us is: Are we investing in the lives of our members, and opening up avenues for them to experience the love and grace of God, or have we sided too much on the side that the congregation should gift the church with their time, talents and treasures?

Perhaps the issue is with us not with them.  If our Parish roles, our monthly offerings, our voluntarism, our Sunday school numbers, our youth-groups members, our choir rosters, and the number of visitors to our church are all on the decline, perhaps the answer is relatively simple.  Perhaps people just aren’t getting anything out of being a part of a worshipping community.  Maybe it is as LauraMarie suggests in Priorities, maybe it’s a matter of people feeling that there is something better to do.

It’s a scary thought.  It’s one that I both shun and put forward for us to seriously consider.  If it is true that people simply no longer perceive value out of being a part of a worshipping community, then this is a dire issue that needs our immediate attention.  And simply stating that ‘church is important’ or ‘You should go to church’ won’t really solve the issue, for the problem is much deeper.

So how do we address this?  What does it mean for the community of faith to worship in a way in which each individual member feels that they receive personal benefit and care?  What steps can we take to turn everything around and model the fact that church is a place where people receive, and not merely a place that continually asks you to give? I not sure of the full answer, but I am willing to bet it has something to do with investing in others, despite the time, the effort, or the cost.

I would be interested in people’s thoughts.