It isn’t really about coffee, is it?

Did you see John Piper’s tweet at the end of 2023 about whether we should drink coffee during worship services? (en November 2023).

How does that hit your ear? It’s proven controversial, with as many likes as dislikes. It really isn’t about coffee though, is it? On the Ask Pastor John podcast (episodes #2011– #2013), Piper clarified that his concern beneath beverages is ‘the absence of the kind of experience with God that would make a Christian soul long for regular encounters with God and His people that are so profoundly satisfying in the depth of their being … that a coffee mug would simply feel strangely out of place.’

Do you think there could be something to that? Have we lost a sense of reverence and transcendence in corporate worship? Has this, in part, come from a right desire to include the outsider that has led us to minimise the uniqueness of encountering God through the ministry of His people? Would it actually be more compelling for the outsider if believers obviously expected to encounter the living God as we gather? Alternatively, might our right concern to avoid corporate worship being defined by personal experience be leading us to minimise vital, Biblical experiences of meeting with God and knowing something of His transcendence personally?

What might change if we embraced this truth (whilst also maintaining with Piper that this is not the only way we encounter God, and that God is as wonderfully close in His immanence as He is exalted in His transcendence)? What if we gave more serious attention to making all the parts of our gatherings God-focused? What if we crafted our services to ‘focus on God, uninterrupted, for a significant time’, as Piper suggests? Could this renew our efforts to ‘let the sound of the congregation singing be the main sound of the music in worship,’ let every song be singable by all, and saturate our songs ‘with Scripture and rich, deep, sound doctrine’.

You won’t agree with everything Piper says; I don’t. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if this started a conversation that led to greater reverence in our worship gatherings?