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After reading Pastor Thomas‘ comments and thoughts on what Messiah and journeys coffeehouse are doing I was beyond compelled to reply.  Below is my reply to his post.

Pastor Thomas I would like to share my thoughts on your post and journeys coffeehouse on main street.

When journeys coffeehouse was formed over three years ago inside the of the walls of Messiah it was known that is was only a place to grow and cultivate the idea of using a third place to help share the Gospel to the world. As much as one will try the fact is that journeys coffeehouse in it’s current location is stuck within the confines of a traditional church building. Folks who don’t yet know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior don’t want to walk into the walls of a traditional church, most churches buildings freak them out. As I recall from what I read, Jesus did not do the majority of His ministry and outreach in the temple but out where the people are. journeys coffeehouse goal is to create a ministry venue in which the gospel can be shared and lived out. journeys coffeehouse is not intending to be “a church” on main street but instead and more powerful to be “the Church” on main street. We can continue to build traditional church buildings and asking the world to come to Him, or we can take Him to the world.

I would rather pour my life into someone while sharing the gospel instead of polishing the pretty bricks on a traditional church building. Jesus did not come to the world to have us make members in church clubs but instead to have His creation cross from death to life through believing in Him.

Be Blessed,
Dan Lacher

Update to the post.  I do understand and believe in the local church so please don’t misunderstand that through my strong statements above.  What I do have a problem with are the traditional church settings are so inwardly focused that they are not evangelizing to the world and tightening in on the “club” mentality if even unconsciously.

I recently received the Chapadao de Ferro, Brazil from MadCap Coffee Company for this months shipment in the Direct Trade Coffee Club. So far, I have had a chance to try this via a chemex, espresso and in an americano.  The dark chocolate comes out in the slow brew while I get a lot more of the caramel in the espresso. Makes for a well rounded and versatile roast. Amazing flavors!

My first attempt at creating a “how to” video for some home baristas out there. I made this one up for the folks over at CoffeeCupNews.ORG.

As an avid backpacker and coffee connoisseur I continue to find a better method for preparing coffee on the trail.  My current preferred method is with my GSI lexan french press, this provides me with the best tasting cups that I have had on the trail to date.  The only issue that I have is that I purchased a larger press that is a bit bulky for when I am going solo or when I am the only one on the hike drinking coffee… I digress.

For some time now I have seen and heard about Java Juice Extract as an option for coffee on the trial.  With a recent purchase on Amazon I picked up a ten pack to give it a try.  This morning with my man Sean Bartley from journeys coffee we gave it a tasting.  First impression of the packaging, it would dramatically reduce pack weight and bulk.  Upon tearing open the pouch I found the pre-defined opening to be nice and small, great for helping to reduce possible spillage.  I grab a set of scissors to open it up more to be able to smell the extract before adding it to the waiting water.  Well that was a mistake, the smell of the extract was that of worcestershire sauce or if you have ever had Samuel Adam’s Triple Bock, either way the potent aroma that hits your nose almost made me not want to pour it into the water… so if you are going to give this a taste test, I suggest you skip the sniffy sniff of the extract itself.  Move on then to adding the extract to 11 oz of water at 190 degrees.  After a little stir to ensure consistency in the mix I have it a sniff.  Okay, the extract smell is still there in the final cup all be it a little mellowed down and I was able to also pull out some slight nutty aromas and sadly that was about it.  Moving on to the taste testing with a quick sip, I found there to be almost zero flavor with a slight hint of “brown water”, really to me this had an extreme lack of flavor and no finish.  I have to say I was pleased that there was no finish, I don’t know if I could have handled having it on my palette.  I gave it a few more sips to see if I was missing something then dumped it, sorry Java Juice this is a major pass for me.

I shall continue to search out some other options.  I believe my next trial will be to see how the AeroPress can preform on the trail.

As you read this, you will hopefully see clearly that there have been a few times now that I believe God has clearly spoken to me. How you ask, well let me tell you by way of the accounts.

The first time that I clearly recall hearing God, freaked me out. This to date is the only time that I believe I audibly heard Him. I was showering and praying about what the heck the day would bring when, as clear as can be, I heard a voice tell me that I was going to pray at the firehouse and over the fire fighters. I seriously looked around to see who was in the bathroom. I was a bit freaked at first, and spent most of the day then wrestling with God on if He really wanted me to do this. Really, I spent most of a day bantering back and forth over something so small. I finally said You got it, picked up the phone book, found the number for one of the stations in town and called. I headed over around dinner time and had a chance to sit around and find out a few of their stories. Before leaving I had took the opportunity to pray over the firehouse and the men that were their. It was humbling to hear the voice of God asking me to do something so simple yet so powerful.

Like I said above, that is to date the only time that I have heard the voice of God audibly speak to me. The other two encounters I am going to share came differently.

Messiah believed that we were being called, and still do believe, to take journeys out of our current building and to bring it to Main Street to create a coffeehouse ministry venue. Early in the process of imagining what this could be, I had been seriously praying over where God wanted us to place the coffeehouse. We had found a location right on Main Street in Midland and really felt like it was the place. Several of us had prayed over the location, but there were other offers starting to come in all at once on a building that had been sitting empty for over a year… So one night after a long day of working numbers for the new venue and endless hours working on other portions of the technology issues around Messiah, finally I made it home. Family time is always a wonderful thing to come home to after a long day, and as on every other normal night, Erin and I did the standard family routines and then Erin and I dropped into bed. I was exhausted off my feet… but I could not fall asleep. After tossing and turning, I found myself praying and asking what was on my heart that I had not confessed or didn’t understand. God and I had a great talk that night and then I drifted off to sleep. A few hours later, I had the most vivid dream I can recall having. As simple as the dream was, I clearly heard God tell me that the He was giving us the building and to not worry.

Okay, so first I tell you that I audibly hear the voice of God while I am showering and now I tell you that while I am sleeping one night He comes to me in a dream and tells me that He will give Messiah a building for launching a Main Street coffeehouse ministry venue… if you are still with me, that is right. It was an amazing and powerful dream that woke me up and I knew that it was truly God that had given me the dream and spoken to me.

Now to the present where I have been wrestling in pray for months with God over something and not knowing which way to go, what side is up or down, and really at a loss for the direction on how to proceed. While Erin and I were recently on a small vacation I had lots of time to do nothing. Nothing except spend some amazing time in prayer as I continued to wrestle with God over this. After several days of this and being deep in His Word, I was awoken by another amazing dream that laid out the answer. I know above I said the dream about the coffeehouse building was vivid, but this tops it. The details of this dream are captured and will be shared in time, but I am humbled to have been awoken by this dream and to know it was God clearly speaking to my heart on the matter. Simple and humble amazement washed over me for my Creator.

So there is it. I don’t know how or why God has chosen to speak to me in these ways but I am blessed to have listened and acted as He has called.

Today marks an interesting day, a time of transition shall now begin. My first post college career with Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) I made the choice to transition to new employment. Today the decision was made for me to transition into the next area of life. I have loved to serve at Messiah on staff for three years. In that time I had the privilege of helping to give birth to journeys, and bring the technology Messiah uses to reach the world and spread the message of Christ much further along.

I leave this post with a word from our Lord.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6

Be Blessed
dl

Another anointed journey with the Lord.  This was my second WFX that I have had the honor of attending.  The first was last spring in Indianapolis where I was working for Third Place Consulting in helping to spread the vision of leveraging the real estate that the church already owns to create and utilize amazing third places to connect people, develop leaders and fund causes for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.  This time around I attended for be filled and taught for my new roll at Messiah.  The faith family at Messiah have some amazing challenges ahead with the vision for the global church and this venue allows for a direct connection to some of the best people in technology to aid in accomplishing that vision.

Upon arriving in Houston I met up with the original Church Bartender (Michael Trent).  Michael has been and continues to be an amazing mentor and friend.  We both have a deep passion to see the church be church and stop playing.  We visited a church body doing just that.  Ecclesia has positioned itself in the world but has set the done as Jesus called us to not be of the world.  They have an amazing building that is used for but not limited to a cafe, recording studio, worship area, local art gallery, neighborhood natural foods market.  If you ever make it to Houston, you need to place them on your list to see, they are being church.  While at Ecclesia we hung out with Daniel Park and where privileged to hear his story and the amazing plans that God has for him in Prague.  The pastor at Ecclesia has help to write a new translation of the New Testament soon to be released.  I am currently reading a segment of it called: The Voice of Acts: The Dust Off Their Feet: Lessons from the First Church.  This is the book of Acts retold and amazing.

As it turns out dinner always turns out to be an amazing time of spiritual growth.  I was blessed to have dinner with some old friends and new.  The seafood at McCormick & Schmicks was wonderful and the conversation was life changing… time to win the world for Christ people, if we do not do it, who will?

I spent considerable time in class and training as well.  The audio mix class with Armando Fullwood (Design 2020), Reed Hall (Lakewood) and Walter Silverberg (The Potter’s House) was out of this world to have that knowledge and experience base pouring in and training me.  The other classes that I attended were on Third Places Now & Next, Simple Steps to Streaming Live, Church in a Digital World, Creating Engaging Environments with Video Staging, and the 60 Minutes Church Website Makeover.  The keynote from by Dave Ferguson on building up leaders, launching them and growing the church was amazing.  What is your faith families Big Idea and are you accomplishing it?  After the talk I was privileged to hang out with Dave in the green room and learn and share what Christ is doing at CCC and Messiah.

By far the most powerful and impact-full discussions I had was on learning about Global Need.  I really still do not know how to put it into words for what the Lord is doing there.  Please go to Global Need and check it out, read up and get involved.

The expo floor is always interesting and filled with everyone from builders / architects, chair supplies, stain glass window manufactures to the highest end electronics vendors in the world and everything in between.  One has to enter the expo floor with filters on or you will be overwhelmed.  The three products that I will take away from my time on the floor are; ProPresenter and Tight Rope Media Server.

Thank you to all of the presenters, teachers and contributors that gave of their time to teach.  I close with this,  what is this vision that Christ has given to your faith family and are you accomplishing that vision?  We know the great commission, so are we truly living it out?

God Bless,
dl

This weekend was a faboululs weekend that started in the planning several weeks back.  My beautiful wife celebrated a birthday.  We took the weekend to relax and have awesome family time.  On Saturday we chilled at home, slept in and then headed out to journeys for a morning coffee, while there I took the girls for a walk and play time in the back while my bride had a chance to sit and just have some quiet reading time. Later in the day as the girls were napping I asked if she wanted to watch the most recent episode of WineLibrary.tv … to which at the end of the show Gary V gives a big birthday shout out to my bride, AWESOME.  That took a little planning but the timing was amazing and she was stoked.  The evening was topped of by having lined up the babysitter for the girls and heading out for dinner at a dualing piano bar.  It was a great day and she was stoked.  Happy Birthday my love.

For what it’s worth.

As many have heard or will be hearing soon, I will be leaving Sun Microsystems at the end of November of this year after eight and a half years.  I have accepted the position of Director of Technology at Messiah and will be leading up, forming, growing, developing…. all aspects of the use of technology to help spread the Gospel message locally as well as globally.  I will continue to oversee and lead the journeys team, they are my local church bartenders and we rock it out.

I have had a blast and learned so much in my time at Sun and will miss the work and most definitely the people, they have truly made the job worth coming to each day.

Jesus has an awesome adventure ahead for myself, my family and for His kingdom and I am excited to be called to be a part of it all.

For what it’s worth

A young boy in a small Brazilian village. A local homeless man making a fresh start on life. An elderly Biloxi woman devastated by the hurricane. These are just three individuals who share an unlikely bond – their lives have been touched by the love of Christ through a coffeehouse tip jar. For the staff and patrons of journeys coffeehouse in Midland, Michigan, the missions jar is just one aspect of what an intentional third place can do to fund causes locally and globally.

Located inside Messiah Lutheran Church, journeys is uniquely positioned to service the faith family as well as to reach out into the community – even if that outreach happens on the go via the drive-through window. journeys is a third place for people to gather, connect, share, relate and let life happen. The joy of being an independent third place is that we are free to impact the world for Christ in all we do in our business and mission… that is right, there is more to journeys at the end of the day then slinging coffee. We have the great privilege of being able to fund causes with every dollar that journeys as a small business generates. From the moment of of conception we knew that revenue from the sales would go to fund the mission of Jesus in this world through the faith family of Messiah Lutheran Church but we get to go beyond that. It was not until opening weekend, when several customers asked whether we had a tip jar, that God presented the idea of funding outreach in that way.

Each month a mission organization is selected and signage is hung to promote the cause. As time goes on we have patrons asking questions about each mission as well as asking what the next one will be. It is not uncommon for a customer to ask about the mission, receive back their change but then offer back a five dollar bill to be placed in the missions jar. How great is that? The compassion of our customers has now transformed what the world sees as a “tip” jar to an offering to Christ and His Kingdom.

Now that is a bit about the background, but where does the coffee hit the cup? Shortly after journeys opened, our faith family was sending hurricane relief teams down to Biloxi, MS to help clean up the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. That mission trip was the first beneficiary of the monthly mission offering. So every dollar that came in was sent along with the relief team to fund aid in Biloxi. We also have used the funds to send a group of youth to West Virginia on a construction mission trip, aid in the relief effort in Darfur, and support mission teams working in an orphanage and medical mission in Haiti. On a local level, we have had the honor of using the offerings to support a men’s crisis center, donate funds to a Christian radio station, and provide holiday blessings to families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One of the greatest months for me personally was the month that we collected the necessary funds to sponsor a child from Compassion International. We wanted to be very intentional about this and the impact this would have so we did a little research through our coffee supplier. Then we went to Compassion and asked them to find us a child in the very spot in the world where the beans we use each day are being grown and harvested. Now we have an even more compelling story to share with every guest at journeys: “Did you know that we are financially and prayerfully supporting a child in the very place where these beans are coming from?” This child’s father, mother, grandfather…could be the very people growing the beans that we use. Wow – to me, being able to share a connection with a child and touch his life with the love of Christ is very cool.

I’ll close with one other story of how we have seen our customers fully embrace a mission. Recently, we funded the purchasing of tooth brushes for a medical mission trip to Guatemala. We not only had customers giving through the missions jar but also bringing in toothbrushes to have sent down. By the time the month was over there were nearly 300 toothbrushes donated and enough funds to purchase 1000 more. What makes the story even better is that a large toothbrush manufacturer matched our funds, thereby doubling the toothbrushes purchased to 2000! We even had a dentist in our faith family offer to cover the shipping charges.

When God moves through His people, awesome things happen. Around the world and in our backyard, the staff and patrons of journeys are showing God’s unfailing love – one cup of coffee at a time.

Note: The above is the full length version of an article posted as “end notes” in Sept – October 2008 issue of Worship Facilities Magazine.