Matthew 28 | Bad Coffee and Missing the Main Thing
Why is it so easy to miss the main thing?
In February of 2008, an email was leaked from Starbucks headquarters. It was sent from Howard Shultz, who was transitioning back into the CEO role after an eight-year absence, to the current CEO, Jim Donald:
“as we prepare for the 2008 strategic planning process, I want to share some of my thoughts with you. Over the past 10 years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have led to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and what some might call the commoditization of our brand. Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit, would not have created the dilution of the experience, but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. It’s time to get back to the core, and make the changes necessary to invoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion we all have for the true Starbucks experience.”
Here is a company with nearly unlimited resources, access to all the business gurus, and insight.
And they wake up one day to release they have lost the main thing.
If that can happen to them…it can happen to anyone.
It can happen to families.
It can happen to churches.
It can happen to you.
As we wrap up Matthew, there is no better passage to help us keep the main thing, the main thing.
If we are going to do that, then we need to hear the following:
- The Call of the Risen Christ
- The Claim of the Risen Christ
- The Command of the Risen Christ
- The Commitment of the Risen Christ