I have gone to church my entire life. I’ve always felt at home in churches, because regardless of the denomination, I’ve had at least some frame of reference to help me through the hour. Attending a different church would provide a little bit of social anxiety due to not finding familiar faces, but it was nothing incapacitating.
But now I think I know what it feels like for someone to attend church for the first time.
Of the six of us who work at The Hope Center, only two of us are coffee drinkers. We each have a French Press, and we’ll often pick each other up a coffee if we pass a coffee shop on the way back to the office.
A couple of months ago, our interest in tea was starting to pique. We had heard of an establishment just a few minutes away that sold varieties of loose-leaf teas, and also sold prepared drinks. The joint sounded like a nice change of pace, so we went to check it out.
Tea Drops: Fail.
The main problem with the neat new place on the block is that it’s packed with hipsters. The line was pretty long, but we decided to wait it out since we had made the effort to trek down there. That proved to be a bad idea as the place was completely understaffed, and the ladies behind the counter couldn’t multitask. Bad news when a couple of tea novices walk through your doors.
We made our way back to the selection of loose leaf teas to perhaps pick some up to take home with us. Fail. The only info available was the tea names. Nothing about their undertones. Nothing about what they might go well with. So instead of dropping cash on a crapshoot, we waited in the ever-growing line to order a hot beverage.
Problem: the menu was a mess. Again, only titles of various teas. No info on what differentiated the variations from each other. No prices. I ended up just ordering a Chai, because it was the one thing I could identify on the menu. Didn’t want to risk ordering a random $10 drink that tasted like skunk butt.
And so the waiting game continued. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, I got my Chai. And while it didn’t taste like skunk butt, it wasn’t even close to what I brew up at home on a regular basis. Again. Fail.
As we walked out of Tea Drops, I was both frustrated and confused. But at least I learned some keys to making church more appealing to people who walk through the doors for the first time.
Accessibility. Information. Be Nice.
Because while there is other substantive stuff that is more important, if you don’t master those things, people will leave your church thinking the same thoughts I had as I left Tea Drops.
Never again.
Renew and Restore
