Tuesday, 03 August 2010

• The Five Stages of the "No Coffee Today" Church Announcement

  

  By Brett at Godly Sheep

  Christian’s love their coffee. It’s possibly the only thing that we can become completely addicted to, and it’s still ok. We have socials gathered around it. We bring people to our house to try our coffee. Our hangouts are shops entirely devoted to selling and making coffee. And I’m pretty sure if Jesus wasn’t more specific, we’d have espresso for communion. So what happens when something goes awry with the coffee pot before church service? This last Sunday, there was a delay in coffee due to shorting out electrical breakers. (I guess we run a lot of coffee) How do you do you deal with it? Typically, us coffee drinkers all follow five steps in working through the “No Coffee Today” at church announcement:

  1. Shock and Denial – “What?” “No, it can’t be.” “But why?” You can hear these murmurings from the congregation as they try to whisper through their disbelief. “Surely, this must be a joke” you say to yourself. “I bet there’s pots and pots of coffee as far as the eye can see back there, and the pastor is just playing a sick joke.” You envision a barista giving you a hug, then turning into a giant cup of Americano. No coffee? This…this just can’t be.

  2. Anger and Bargaining - This quickly turns to anger. I mean, you’re tired and desperately lacking caffeine. You’re in no mood for jokes or failures of planning. Why don’t we have backups, contingency plans for this sort of thing? You mean all this money I donate can’t afford a decent electrical system to run 25 pots of coffee simultaneously on one circuit?  Ok, I’ll tell you what, promise me coffee today, and I’ll double my building plan promise.

  3. “Depression”, Reflection, and Loneliness – Then it hits you. There’s not going to be coffee today. Not a drop. You remember the last time you had coffee. How bitter, yet sweet, but all delicious it tasted. Yes, you and coffee were friends. Now, it’s just you. Empty, tired, and without a cup for your hand to hold.

  4. Reconstruction and Working Through – As your body adjusts to the lack of caffine, you become more functional; your mind stats working again. You start to seek realistic solutions to this dilemma. You’ll work through a lot of candy through the service, and pick up a cup of coffee on your way home. You start to make plans to continue your day without coffee.

  5. Acceptance and Hope – Finally, you learn to accept that yes, there will be no coffee right now. But acceptance doesn’t mean ‘happiness’. This doesn’t mean that you’ll find the caffeinated, energized, you that’d you’d normally be with coffee, but you can move on. You can find a way to move forward through all this; and maybe, just maybe you should wean yourself off your dependence on coffee.

  Coffee drinkers, you know this sadness. Do you have “No Coffee Today” at church announcement story you’d like to share?

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