Go to Starbucks and Pay it Forward

One of the latest news stories I ran across today was about one person’s charity to pay for the coffee of the person behind her at a Starbucks, which led to two hours of free starbucks from all the cars that followed through the same drive thru. This reminded me of a dare campaign my church Rockharbor started last year to encourage our church to get out of our comfort zones to display God’s love around Orange County by picking up cards at dare boxes which read anything from “fill up someone’s gas” to “pay for someone’s starbucks” etc. I’m not sure what the original driver’s intention was, but the result was a great reminder of the beauty of following Jesus, the responsibility we have to share his love, and the fruit that could result from our actions.Click on the link of the video below from Good Morning America at ABCNews.com :http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3982483&affil=wsyxStill, do you think it would suffice to simply love people with these actions without saying anything about what drives us to these actions? I wrestle with this as a follower of Jesus and because I see the Church wanting to embody Christ’s love through social justice issues and “servant evangelism” but most of the time remaining silent in communicating where this love comes from and proclaiming the Gospel message to people that may otherwise praise us for our efforts.I lean more toward making sure it is clear to people why I do what I do if I’m helping a homeless person to get off the streets or opening a door for a stranger, because we certainly live in a culture where an atheist can express as many good works alongside a mormon and a methodist. But, as Christians, we need to communicate that we are not another religious group expressing a set of ideals on doing good works, but rather we are followers of Jesus who want to express his sacrificial love to a world that needs to be reconciled to Himself.In a culture of pluralism, I don’t see any harm in making it clear to people that Jesus is Lord and I’m following my master’s wishes to love God and love my neighbor.

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