The Third Place

At Starbucks, we have a vocabulary for the role we'd like to play in the lives of our customers.  Home is, for most people, the first place- the place were the bulk of their time is spent, where they are comfortable.  Work is usually the second place- where you spent the other bulk of your time.  Starbucks, the people at Corporate hope, can be the third place- somewhere you are comfortable and feel welcome and use as an extension of yourself.  I think in some respects, church can fall into the third place category as well.  Especially for those of us who grew up in program-based churches, church is often someplace where we feel very comfortable and at home, someplace we've spent hours and hours, someplace we head to simply out of boredom, to see who's there and what's going on.

But the question is this:  What happens for the people who work in these third places?  As a Starbucks employee, sometimes I think about this, but most of the time all the perks of my job overrule the question.  But I am also a former church music director, and I'm looking at a calendar that says today is Good Friday.  I'm thinking about all the people I know who have already and who will be spending hours and hours and hours this week and weekend making sure the third place is ready for people to come and worship.  I was unsuccessful in my attempt to work someplace that has so often been the third place in my life, and the burnout has not been pretty.  My hope is that all of my friends and former coworkers are able to truly abide in God this weekend and minister out of the life and grace He provides. So here's my prayer (well, technically, Paul's prayer) for all of the hundreds and hundreds of people involved in worship services this Holy Week:

That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 

so that you may be able to discern what is best 

and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 

filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, 

to the glory and praise of God.