Five Lessons Student Ministry Can Learn from Starbucks

“Hi, my name is Mike and I am a Starbucks-aholic.” Yes, I confess, I love Starbucks coffee. I frequent their stores while traveling and when I am home, I grind their coffee fresh every morning. But this post is more than just a commercial or a personal admission of my love for coffee…all coffee.

March 30, 2011 Starbucks celebrates its 40th anniversary as a company. Recently I read an interesting interview between USA Today’s marketing reporter Bruce Horovitz and Howard Schultz the CEO of Starbucks. I was impressed with some of the company’s core competencies.

While I do not endorse everything Starbucks stands for or promotes, I have extracted five lessons that I believe we can learn that could benefit our student ministries.

1. Communicate clearly who you are and what you believe. No, I am not trying to make Starbucks a religion, but they have done a great job of establishing who they are and what they do. Have you determined the principles or non-negotiables of your ministries and clearly articulated them?
2. Do something no one else has done. When Starbucks first opened in Seattle and announced they were going to sell specialty coffee for a substantially higher price than regular coffee, most people said it would never work. Dare to dream big dreams and to attempt great things in your ministry for God. Why can’t you reach the world through your student ministry?
3. Give your students an experience not an event. The moment you walk into a Starbucks, you begin to experience the aroma, décor and connections with people. Our student ministries should create an environment where students are safe and connected. What are you doing to make your ministry inviting and irresistible?
4. Reinvent your program periodically. Starbucks changes the décor of the stores, has added VIA (which generates over $200 million in yearly revenue) and has brought in several new support products.  What areas of your ministry program need overhauling and how frequently do you make necessary changes?
5. Know who you aren’t. That may sound strange but Starbucks decided against getting into film production and book sales because they are not core to coffee. Have you defined your Biblical values and, based upon that grid, determined who you aren’t and what your ministry will not be?

Can we learn lessons from businesses that are focused on making a profit? I think the answer is yes, but we have to be careful of drawing too many analogies. I long for the day that businesses are so impressed that they are learning lessons from the church.