Brewing a Better World (Part 5): Reversing Coffee's Dark History in a Borderless World

Photo by Craig Sunter

We'll make this the last in the highly-caffeinated 5-part series on coffee, business, and mission in the 21st century that I've entitled, "Brewing a Better World".  [Catch up on the whole series here.]

Today I want to continue my musing upon the idea of coffee as the perfect "Great Commission Commodity".  

Everywhere I go I repeat a simple statement that I believe is absolutely critical for the people of God to digest as they engage in 21^st century mission. Here it is:

In the 21^st century, people keep moving, especially to the cities and yet stay connected to everywhere.  

This last phrase, about connections, speaks to the reality of globalization in the world today.  A globalized world is a borderless world connected by high-tech communication, high-speed travel, and high-impact influencers whose messages resound from Bollywood to Belfast and from Twitter to Timbuktu (seriously, the city in Mali).  But long before mobile phones outnumbered toilets (a real fact that needs to be addressed, here's a tiny awareness project we did on this) and before Viber made it possible for me to call Uganda from Chicago for free, it was coffee that began to show us that this is indeed a small world after all. Coffee was the first truly global commodity and is the second biggest in the world today (behind oil, which isn't nearly as tasty).  Coffee moves today in ways very similar to the way peoples move and the potential to leverage that movement for the sake of mission is very interesting to me.  As I hop around coffee houses in the US I’m noticing that more and more local roasters are even bypassing “Big Coffee” in favor of direct sourcing strategies – a trend that ties people movement and coffee movement even more closely together.  Again, the key is to leverage movement for mission, which means transforming realities for the sake of Christ  - till all people movement and all coffee movement means gospel movement.

And take this a step further,  if Bosch is right when he says that mission is about transforming reality (and he is right) then the coffee industry has tremendous potential for holistic Kingdom work.  Coffee has a “dark history” (to lift a phrase from Antony Wild) closely tied to slavery, corporate greed and abuse, ecological devastation and worse.  The finest coffees in the world, consumed by the West’s most comfortable suburbanites and grooviest hipsters are nevertheless grown in the poorest regions of the globe by people who are lucky if they make enough money to feed their families. Coffee has not only had a front row seat for some of the greatest injustices in history but the industry as a whole continues to do much to perpetuate the same systemic evils.  

But that’s exactly where things get interesting.  

First of all, coffee shops have always been fertile ground for over-stimulated people to stimulate one another to ideas of innovation, social change, and even revolution (e.g. both the French and American Revolutions were essentially brewed – pun intended – in coffee shops).  I observe today that crowds of caffeinated coffee consumers could still be rallied around coffee production strategies that brought about positive and sustainable transformation. To say nothing of using coffee shops as third-spaces to catalyze all manner of justice causes.

What is more, the business of coffee growing and shipping puts one in close proximity to poverty, disease, violence and the long-term effects of violence, the global gateways of forced migration (trafficking), and other forms of oppression.  Proximity gives way to intentional presence for the Christ-follower, to incarnation and thus to strategic engagement and partnership for the sake of Kingdom transformation.  So, the implications here are deep for how we do business and to what end.  What is clear to me is that the best way to address injustices perpetuated or ignored by the coffee industry is to radically transform the way that business is done. 

So, we close the series today with two quite different concepts - globalization and justice - that will absolutely need to be taken together if we are ever going to end or stop anything.  What does the world look like from your seat?  How are you and your team engaging in global connections and partnerships for the sake of bringing Kingdom justice to bear?  

Well, the coffee shop in which I sitting as I write this is closing.  I need to wrap this up.  I've enjoyed pouring out my heart to you during this series.  Pray for me and for everyone at Trinity and Endiro as we journey with the Lord in this new endeavor.  

Brewing a Better World (Part 1): Musings and Mission and Transforming the World

Photo by Jake Liefer

I remain obsessed with bringing the hope and wholeness of Lord Jesus to those who have been the least-reached by his message, least-reachable by his followers, and least in reach of his reign in this world.  This obsession has manifest itself in many strange ways over the years. I have become strange, and I'm okay with that.

[Read the whole Brewing a Better World Series here.]

Coffee is the latest, perhaps most surprising, new dimension of my strangeness as I try to discover new ways of . . . not sure what exactly.  Bosch said mission is about transforming reality.  That's true and that's what I care about.  That's the passion to which I've devoted the last 18 years of my life.  I have gradually discovered about myself that when I see problems of lostness, brokenness, oppression, injustice and the like I don't want to raise awareness about them.  I don't want to help out.  I want to change it.  I want to end it.  What is worse, I tend to believe that transformation is wholly possible.  

So, all this to say that I've stepped into a more active and significant role with Endiro Coffee - which my sister founded a few years back and which officially became a part of the Trinity family a couple years after that.  I spend about half my time now thinking about (and drinking) coffee.  I've dusted off and refurbished old creative, marketing and branding skills and am even trying to develop my palate so that can tell you with authority if a certain coffee bean is malty, earthy, fruity, honey-toned, or all of the above. And it's all crazy as heck because I had never even consumed a cup of coffee before I went to Cape Town in 2010 - but this all seems to reek of the Holy Spirit.  Indeed the more I meditate upon coffee and its role in my life as a missions leader (particularly while propped up the magical brown substance) the more I find myself in awe of the potential these mighty little beans have for the Kingdom of God in the 21st century.

So, over the next week or so, I want to muse over coffee and mission and do a lot of "what if"-ing - which I suppose is what muse means.  Here are the questions I'll be pondering:

1. Can coffee become a financial engine for world mission? 

2. Can the business of coffee itself transform reality for the sake of the Kingdom?

3. Is coffee the perfect Great Commission commodity for the 21st century? 

4. How do I put the terms "south-to-south migration", "10/40 Window" and "Coffee belt" into the same sentence and somehow articulate how big and awesome is the potential of this grouping of ideas for the sake of mission? (hee-hee)

5. Can coffee-business based in coffee producing nations be used for the mobilization of missionaries from the Global South?

6. Can coffee business put us on the front line of bringing justice to bear where it is needed most?

7. If I have only 6 questions will I seem like I'm not a very good Baptist?

I want to encourage you to muse also.  About coffee or whatever.  Muse about something.  Especially if you care about God and his Kingdom and its advance in your community and the world - you should definitely muse.  Because when you muse and dream and ask "what if" you join the faithful company of protesting saints and prophets who have from the beginning always been at the forefront of God's ever encroaching reign.  Intentionally think outside the box this week.  If mission is about transforming reality, it may very well begin with transforming your mind.

David Bosch on an Eschatology of Mission

"We need an eschatology of mission which is both future-directed and oriented to the here and now.  It must be an eschatology that holds in creative and redemptive tension the already and the not yet; the world of sin and rebellion, and the world God loves; the new age that has already begun and the old that has not yet ended; justice as well as justification; the gospel of liberation and the gospel of salvation.  Christian hope does not spring from despair about the present.  We hope because of what we have already experienced.  Christian hope is both possession and yearning, repose and activity, arrival and being on the way."

David Bosch, Transforming Mission

How Missionary is Your Church? (An evaluation)

By © Salim Photography/ www.salimphoto.com

The following comes from David Bosch's Transforming Mission.  Usually, I post extended quotations on my Scatterings blog, but felt this was worth posting here.  I found the list personally challenging as I reflected on my career as a pastor and church planter.  I encourage you to do a bit of self-examination of you are leader in a local church.  Forget about your seating capacity and offering plates for a moment.  How does your church measure up to Bosch's keys below:

Manifestations of the Missionary Dimension of a Local Church

1. True worship

2. Hospitality and welcome to outsiders

3. Pastor doesn't monopolize ministry, treating members as mere objects of pastoral care

4. Members equipped for their calling in society

5. Structurally pliable and innovative

6. Doesn't defend the privileges of a select group

7. Intentional and direct involvement in society

8. Moves beyond the "walls of the church" to engage in mission in areas of evangelism and work for justice and peace

So, how about it? How "missionary" is your church really?  Also, I'd be interested to hear from you if you have points to add.  What would you add (or challenge) to Bosch's list?

Go into all the world and Westernize it!

Writing of the Puritan era, David Bosch (Transforming Mission) spoke of a rather disturbing idea that was beginning to develop:

Cultural uplift as an aim of mission was still relatively undeveloped . . . . Western Christians believed that their culture was superior to those of non-Western nations, but they did not isolate cultural uplift as a goal of mission.  It was simply assumed that the people would live a better life once God's rule was established over their respective societies.  In John  Eliot's words, it was "absolutely necessary to carry on civility with religion". 


In the generations that followed however . . .

Some decades later Cotton Mather would formulate it even less unequivocally, "The best thing we can do for our Indians is to Anglicize them".  In the subsequent period . . . this view would sometimes be so dominant that it was hard to distinguish between mission and "Westernization."


How about now? What is the difference between the way you engage in mission and the practice of "Westernizing" or "Americanizing" others? Can you imagine the gospel lived out in non-Western forms? Do you think that is still the gospel? Is cultural uplift an legitimate aim of mission?

Why Contextualize? (Part 5) The Locus of Spiritual Transformation

It has been a long time since I wrote the first four installments of my "Why Contextualize" series.  However, as I spend more and more time in the field engaging the realities of cross-cultural mission and the complaints by some against contextualization, there is another (5th) issue that continues to arise.  Just last week, I was on the road teaching about contextualization and heard the following concern (paraphrasing):

"If new followers of Jesus keep the same customs and cultural forms as they had before they became Christians, won't there be confusion as to who is a Christian and who is not?"

I'm grateful for the question because it brings to light what is a dangerous but nevertheless widely held view among Christians (especially in the West) that being a Christian is something that should result in visible, outward signs which essentially equate to an assimilation with Western cultural forms.  Deep down, far too many of us are still trying to "make a man of our Friday's"-- dressing the "savages" up in suits and ties, handing them black leather Bibles and praising the Lord for the "transformation".

But this is neither desirable nor right.  It certainly isn't the gospel. From a Biblical perspective, the locus of spiritual transformation is not to be found in the external, visible realm of customs, clothing, technology, or dietary habits. Rather, transformation by the Spirit of God is an invisible phenomenon -- the giving of a new heart, the renewal of the mind, a re-born spirit.  To be sure, this all will result in a character conformed to the image of Christ and righteous actions.  But that is not to be equated with Windsor knots, Christmas trees, and Chris Tomlin songs (no offense, Chris).  You simply shouldn't be able to pick out a Christian in a line up and if you can, then you've created a kind of pseudo-Christianity that is just far too easy to fake.  You've created a system in which discipleship is reduced to meaningless attempts to pursue conformity to a set of external social cues and cultural forms.  In which case (and I speak from experience), the label "Christian" becomes little more than a way of saying, "Oh I don't celebrate that festival" or "I don't wear those kinds of bodily adornments".  It is a mockery of the gospel and is simply not the thing for which Christ died.  If cultural change is all you are after, why not become a Muslim or join a biker gang or become a mime?

If instead, we assume that God had something else in mind in the incarnation and sacrifice of His beloved Son,  that becoming a Christian is not tantamount to the abandoning of one's culture and traditions (although they certainly are to be scrutinized by the light of God's revelation), then discipleship also has to become something else.  If a person cannot simply trade in their old holidays for new ones, then true spiritual transformation must be located elsewhere.  The locus of spiritual transformation, we find, thus shifts to the unseen yet unmistakable realm of heart, mind, spirit, and character.  And this is precisely where it should have been all along. Hence:


And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Eze 36:26 ESV)

I leave you today with a lovely and ancient description of what I am talking about.  The following is from a late 2nd Century Christian writing known as the Letter to Diognetus (Trans. by D. Bosch):


Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humankind either in locality or in speech or in customs.  For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life . . . While they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians . . . and follow the native custom in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectations . . . In a word, what the soul is in a body, this the Christians are in the world.


Amen!