The main reason–legendary service begins with knowing that there are two sides of the service counter.  Not only are behind-counter tasks important, so are things on the front side of the counter.  This means cleaning and forming conversations with customers.  A lot of Starbucks partners have forgotten this fact.  They, quite frankly, don’t care about the other side of the counter.  It makes them just like any other fast food employee.  It’s not legendary.

No, I haven’t forgotten I’m writing on a kid’s ministry blog and not a business blog.  Just give me a second.  We as kids’ ministry people (and ministry people in general) have a tendency to barricade ourselves.  Behind the stage, on the stage, in a back room, in a sound booth.  Instead of heading out before the service and hanging out with the kids, we’re too busy “hiding”.  Yes, I realize you have to prepare.  I get that.  But don’t forget that you’re serving those kids.  Your ministry is to share the love of Christ with them.  You have to spend time with them to do that.  They’ll remember you more.  They’ll connect with you more.

I’m far from innocent in this area.  I feel that most of us are probably that way.  Make a special effort to talk to some kids this Sunday.  Don’t make them come to you.  Go talk to them.  Remember- there’s two sides.

No one likes the person who puts their seat back like that. Unfortunately, I spent three hours on a plane from Dallas to San Diego this week with a person like that in front of me. That person was more concerned with his comfort than the comfort of those around him.

If, in all your days of reading this blog you haven’t noticed that I like to use random things to make ministry analogies, this is going to be one of those posts. So what does it have to do with children’s ministry? Simple. Many times we, as humans, choose to ignore the comfort of others in favor of what makes us feel better. We come up with this “cool” idea that we are totally sold out to, but our volunteers aren’t. We just insist on pushing through with it, because we’re convinced it’s what we need to do. In the process, we totally alienate all of those around us and end up trying to run our ministries all by ourselves.

Sometimes you just need to take a step back. Let go of your emotional attachment to something and simply look at it through the eyes of another person. There may be this sudden realization that what you are convinced is good, is not really that good.

That’s not to say that you should ignore God’s will for the favor of man. That’s also a dangerous place to be. If you are sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you are doing is right, do it. God will help you with that.

Let people know you really care about what they have to say. Accept input from others. It’ll really help for you to communicate with those you serve and that help you to serve.

What Starbucks has figured out #3: Follow them home.

Part of the Starbucks experience we mentioned last time is something very important: follow-up.  Starbucks doesn’t want your experience to end at the door, they want you to take it home with you.

Think about the last time you visited Starbucks.  You probably left with a refreshed, warm mood.  Just a pretty happy place to visit, right?  Their stores are designed to give you a feeling of being welcome.  Partners are trained to help make you feel like you belong.  When you have a bad experience, you get a card good for a free drink next time you visit.  When they make a decision that may not have been best, apologies abound and they insure that they make it right.  Good customers get recognized, and when you walk in they start making “the usual”.  All of it is done to give you an experience that you take home, and they follow up when they do something.

So what do you do for follow-up?  What do people have that “follows them home”?  When you do something wrong, do you apologize and fix it, or do you deny it and try to avoid it?  Follow-up is so extremely important.  Letting people know that you care and wanting to know if they have any questions after an event is important.  In it’s most basic form, it’s a postcard or letter saying, “We’ve been thinking about you.  Are you interested in any of these things we offer?”  You could go up to having a team of visitors who go to visit those who attend to check up on them.

I know, follow-up has been pounded into your head as a children’s ministry worker time after time after time.  That’s because it’s so important!  Following up on the experience someone had allows you to stay connected to them and share the love of God with them continually.

So as we wrap up our series on Starbucks, just remember these things: training, experience, and follow-up.  Make sure you do those three things, and you’ll be well on your way to improving your ministry.  They’re not everything though, so insure that you continue to improve in every area.  Make your ministry so remarkable, people can’t help but talk about it.  And while you’re at it, go grab a Grande Nonfat No Whip Peppermint Mocha. (Evan’s favorite!)

Think about the last time you walked into a Starbucks.  The aroma of the coffee, the feel of the store, the laid-back atmosphere.  What you walked into was more than a restaurant: it was an experience.

From the beginning, that’s what Starbucks was about: the experience.  Everything they did focused on what it did to the experience.  Why the craziness over experience?  Because Howard Schultz, once again serving as CEO of Starbucks, feels that their stores should be the third place.  The third place is the place that isn’t home (first place) and isn’t work (second place) that you can go to hang out, enjoy a good coffee or two, and just unwind.  They desire that their stores feel accessible, fun, and a place where you could sit down and have a meeting.  When you walk in, Starbucks wants you to feel as comfortable there as you would at your own home.

But even as CEO Howard Schultz himself will admit, somewhere along the line the experience got lost in the business.  They moved to flavor-lock packaging, destroying the full coffee smell that they had when coffee arrived in large bins.  A tendency towards a “cookie cutter” store design led to what some called “sterility”.  And perhaps most famously, they introduced breakfast sandwiches.  Longtime patrons hated that the toasting sandwiched ruined the coffee smell so much, that one of Howard Schultz’ first acts when he returned as CEO a few months ago was to begin the demise of the breakfast sandwich at Starbucks.

Think about your ministry: do the parents at your church feel welcome and accepted when they bring their kids in, or do they feel guilty until proven innocent by a full cavity search and metal detector?  OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but you know what I mean.  Security is important, but you do have to strike a balance between security and welcoming both current and new parents to your ministry.

How do your kids feel in services?  Do they feel like they’re taking part, or like they’re watching a show?  Are they comfortable, feeling like they’re at home?  That experience is key to getting kids to feel like they fit in.  You know you’ve all had this kind of kid at one point or another: the first-timer who’s extremely attached to his parents.  Won’t let go of his mother’s leg.  Absolutely resists coming.  That sort of child is the child you should focus on that day.  Have a special worker sit right by him and comfort him and involve him.  Include him in games or prize giveaways.  The experience you create is critical.

Experience is hard to keep up.  It’ll take work.  It is so worth it, though.  Experiences that people have as children at church will continue to shape their image of the church into their adult and teen years.  You may think that that Sunday School teacher that teaches an OK class is fine to leave in place.  That’s dangerous thinking.  That class is, whether you or the child realize it or not, shaping their image of the church and will impact whether they or their future children will come to church in the future.  You can’t settle for mediocrity.  Ministry needs to be best.   Remarkable, you might say.  Go above and beyond.  Now that’s the way I see it.

What they’ve figured out #1: Train, train, train.  Then keep training.  Train until you’re blue in the face.

Starbucks obsesses over employee training.  Partners (not employees, it’s a way they make employees feel more dedicated to the company) learn intricate details about coffee, equipment, experience, customer service, product quality, and company history.   Massive regional training centers ingrain the “Starbucks gospel” into their managers.  Periodical checkups are done on every corporate shop.    They’re even closing their stores on February 26 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM to do product quality re-training.  Training is so key, they sometimes spend up to $3000 per employee just on training.

Starbucks is willing to lose potentially millions of dollars just to retrain their employees for quality.  Spending massive amounts of money just to ensure that their employees are the best they can be is no big deal for them.  Would you want to visit at a Starbucks where none of the employees had been trained?  I think not.  However, most ministries don’t even take the time to spend five minutes training their teachers for a class.

Think about it: We’re not willing to eat at a restaurant with untrained employees, but we’re willing to entrust kids’ spiritual well-being with untrained leaders.  That seems a little broken, does it not?  Why can’t we seem to figure it out?

Train your teachers.  Train yourself by learning from those more experienced.  You’re dealing with the spiritual life of a child.  There’s nothing more important than that.  Learn as much as you can, whenever you can.  You’re not perfect, and neither is anyone else.  And remember to practice this:

Train, train, train.  Then keep training.  Train until you’re blue in the face.

But let’s back up a bit.  Let’s hop into our handy-dandy time machine, and go back about two months.  Dale and Thomas (hereafter D&T) was giving away free $20 gift cards.  Little bells were going off somewhere in my head that I had heard D&T was good popcorn, so I signed up and got my code in a matter of seconds in my email inbox.  So it sat there until two weeks ago I got a genius idea.  Wouldn’t popcorn make a great Christmas gift?  I proceeded to buy the 12-pack sampler, with all twelve of D&T’s current flavors.  I then divvied them up and made gifts out of them, while keeping four bags for my family.

Now, back to last night.  I was craving a snack, so I pulled out the case (yes, case) of popcorn.  One bag of D&T is 12-inches long, and serves 2-4 people.  We decided on the Cinnamon Creme.  I do not know that I could ever go back to regular movie theatre-style popcorn again.  It almost seems like a sin.

D&T has not spread by multi-million dollar TV ads, magazine ads, full-page ads in the New York Times, or all-out web blitzes.  No, they’ve spread simply by word of mouth.  It just so happens, their popcorn happened to hit some very famous mouths.  They’ve included Oprah (as one of her “Favorite Things”), People Magazine, the Today Show, CNN, and many others.  D&T has a product so spectacular, so awesome, you can’t help but “Share Some”, just like I’m doing right now.

What do you do or what can you do in your ministry that will simply make it so that people can’t help but sharing it with their friends?  What game can you play, element can you add, media component can you slip in to make your ministry so totally remarkable that no one can stop telling others?  Do your kids tell their friends?  Do your parents tell their friends?

As Ryan has mentioned here before, the power of a personal invitation is paramount to any number of mail flyers, door hangers, or take-home sheets.  What is really effective in spreading the message of hope we have to offer is someone saying, “My church has this really awesome thing we do in Kids’ Church.  You should ask if you can come this Sunday.”  Getting kids (and even adults) to a point at which they can’t help but sharing it is simply remarkable.  And that’s the way I see it.

Mark 2:15-17 (ESV): “And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

Luke 4:36-47 (ESV): “One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.’ And Jesus answering said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ And he answered, ‘Say it, Teacher.’
‘A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.’”

Seems not much has changed since Bible times. Two types of people no one likes: tax collectors and sinners. But that’s not my point.

When Jesus was alive, I think his daily schedule might have looked something like this :

6:00:00 AM- Wake up. Spend time with the Father in prayer.
6:00:01 AM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus praying? I can’t believe He has time for that!”
7:30:00 AM- Eat breakfast. Eggs and toast, nothing fancy. “Did you see Jesus eating breakfast? I figured Jesus would be a vegetarian.”
8:00:00 AM- Visit the homeless shelter. Serve breakfast.
8:00:01 AM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus at the homeless shelter? I can’t believe he was with those people!”
9:30:00 AM- Visit the sick in the hospital.
9:30:01 AM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus at the hospital touching the sick? I think we ought to buy him a keychain bottle of Purell.”
11:00:00 AM- Visit the movie theatre and witness. (They had those back then, right?)
11:00:01 AM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus at the theatre? I’ll bet He was seeing that R-rated movie.”
12:30:00 PM- Eat lunch. Share with 5000 people.
12:30:01 PM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus feeding the 5000? Let’s go see Him!”
12:35:00 PM- Preach a sermon. Lots of people.
1:30:00 PM- Heal the sick, tell parables, greet the kids, refuse to sign autographs.
4:30:00 PM- Done with healing. Go and hide.
5:00:00 PM- Eat supper. Pray until 7.
7:00:00 PM- Go walking downtown, see a prostitute running towards me, pleading for mercy.
7:00:01 PM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus with the prostitute? I can’t believe that he would do that!”
10:00:00 PM- Visit a bar and witness.
10:00:01 PM- Overhear phone call: “Did you see Jesus at the bar? He doesn’t seem like the drinking type. That’s just astounding.”
12:00:00 AM- Sleep, then repeat.

Okay, so this is a little exaggerated and modernized, perhaps, but it proves the point. Jesus was criticized. But he knew the will of His father, and so he continued even through trouble and persecution. In our ministries, how many times do we “criticize” those who visit the “undesirables”? I know I’m guilty, and pretty much every one of us is. But why? It’s human nature. Without choosing the right way of God, we can’t be truly non-judgemental. It doesn’t matter if the kids we minister to are Caucasian, African-American, Latino, short, tall, fat, ugly, challenged, or sick. It doesn’t matter if our volunteers are obstinate, simplistic, behind the times, old, young, or sometimes even downright annoying. We are called just the same to love and support them. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to help our volunteers improve, or to allow contagious children into our classes all of the time, but it does mean that we should work with them whenever possible.

We also need to make sure that we aren’t judging those who are with those who are “undesirable”. Maybe they’re ministering. Maybe they’re just hanging out with them to make an impact on their lives. But we should still treat them the same. Gossip in the church gets started because of things people see and hear, but don’t get the full story. Don’t let “the gossip train” make a wreck of your ministry. It happens all too often in the church, and we don’t need more of it. Squash gossip when you see it. Go to the source before you start a rumor. But love all.

That seems to be the theme of this: Love all. It’s just that simple. Love all. Give this tidbit to your volunteers. Tape in on your wall. But just remember: Love all.

Here’s the real reason why I’m mentioning him. Over the course of this blog, you’ll learn that I really like quotes from various people. Correction, I really LOVE quotes. But here’s a quote from Jimmy Dean, the man behind the sunshine (Not made in reference to ministry, but still applicable):
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

Ministry many times may seem ineffective. A few years ago, the “culture winds” were blowing one way, and so you adjusted your sails. But have you adjusted your sails recently, or on a regular basis?