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On Coffee-Sipping in the Sanctuary · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  It was called a brew haha, And it started because you decided to tweet
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  about coffee pastor John Coffee. On September thirtieth, you posted a quote from
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  Hebrews. Of course, the chorus of he Bruce jokes followed that. But
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  that text, Hebrews twelve twenty eight is no joke. It's an anti joke,
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  actually, a very serious text that raises questions about the tone of our
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  Sunday gatherings. Hebrews twelve twenty eight says this quote, let us offer to
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  God acceptable worship with reverence and awe quote. And then you follow that text
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  with a comment, an open question is what it was, not a statement,
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  just an open question. Quote, can we reassess whether Sunday coffee sipping
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  in this sanctuary fits in quote? A provocative question for sure, especially here
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  in the States where Sunday mornings can be a pretty casual experience in a lot
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  of churches. Your tweet very quickly got loved and it got hated, and
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  it got spread all over the internet like things tend to do that are both
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  loved and hated, And after a couple of weeks it had one thousand retweets,
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  fifteen hundred comments, three thousand likes, two point seven million views,
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  and sparked feature articles from Fox News here in the States and The Daily Mail
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  in the United Kingdom. I didn't see any of that too. I did
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  not see one retweet. I followed my hundred people, and those people are
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  nice people. So this was all news to me. When people said,
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  have you seen what happened to your tweet? I said, I have not
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  seen anything legend nor to this moment, have it. So what you're saying
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  is I'm taking your word for it. All right, Well, all of
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  that is true, And I mean thousands of people loved what you said online
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  too, Just to be clear, thousands at least as many people love the
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  tweet as hated it. So not knowing if you saw all the responses,
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  I assumed that you hadn't. Honestly, I gathered up a dozen or so
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  of the themes that I saw online and I sent you a digestive responses to
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  see just if you were willing to jump in and address this hot button topic
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  further. And you said, yes, So here we are. I doubt
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  this will be one episode. Likely it's going to be a series on transcendence.
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  In our Sunday worship. We'll see where it goes. But let me
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  just start the conversation by simply asking, now, after seeing this huge response
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  online or hearing about it and reading a digestive some of the themes of what
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  people were saying in response that I sent to you, what is your response.
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  Let me try to get right to the heart of the matter. The
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  heart of the matter is not coffee in the sanctuary. That's only a symptom,
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  and there are lots of other symptoms of what I'm concerned about. The
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  heart of the matter is the absence of an existential, ongoing, terrifying,
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  shocking, awe inspiring, trembling, mouth shutting, comforting, safe, satisfying
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  encounter with the majesty and mercy of the Great I am who I am,
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  whose son said before Abraham was I am, and he was killed for it.
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  What's missing is a kind of experience of God that shapes a person's entire
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  life with serious joy, glad, gravity, sweet sorrow, the weight of
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  glory, the kind of experience of God that has transformed reverence and awe,
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  those two words from Hebrews of twenty eight, reverence and awe from being mere
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  words into being the profoundest of experiential pleasures, and all of that. I
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  say all of that without denying the preciousness of the ordinary, the down to
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  earth, the every day, the casual, the kiss your baby on the
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  cheek life that we live most of the time. I'm not calling the preciousness
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  of any of that into question when I talk about what I'm so concerned about
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  here, I'm pleading for the kind of experience of God that makes a person
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  hungry, for regular encounters with God and his people, which capture and embody
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  something of his majesty, something of the infinite scope of his boundless power and
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  inscrutable wisdom and furious wrath, sovereign grace that leave the awe struck soul speechless
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  with thankfulness and then overflowing with the praises of serious joy lofted on the wings
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  of the kind of gladness that soars only in the atmosphere of the grandeur of
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  God. That's what I'm after, It's what I so long for myself and
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  for others. So I'm arguing that many Christians have not tasted this existential,
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  terrifying, awe inspiring, trembling, mouth shutting, comforting, safe, satisfying
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  encounter with the mercy and majesty of God. And therefore, when they hear
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  me question the appropriateness of coffee sipping in a certain atmosphere of reverence and awe,
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  they have no experiential categories to grasp what I'm talking about. Inside their
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  experience of God, nothing is more natural than to meet Him in worship,
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  coffee mug in hand. It's so natural, which Piper all worked up about.
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  So the heart of the matter is not the coffee mug in hand.
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  It's the absence of a kind of experience with God that would make a Christian
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  soul long for regular encounters with God and his people that are so profoundly satisfying
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  in the depth of their being, with his majesty and his sweetness, in
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  the seriousness of their joy and the weightiness of His glory, that a coffee
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  mug would simply feel strangely out of place. So let me try to shed
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  light on what I'm saying by simply putting two kinds of scripture side by side.
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  The one that I quoted in the tweet is from Hebrews twelve. Let
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  me give the context. Here's what it says. See that you do not
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  refuse him who is speaking. That's God. For they the Old Testament Hebrews
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  did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth. Much less
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  will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time
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  his voice shook the earth. But now he has promised, yet once more
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  will I shake not only the earth but the heavens. Therefore, let us
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  be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And let us offer
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  to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe. For our God is a
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  consuming fire. That's really serious. And so God says in Isaiah sixty six.
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  Too, this is the one to whom I will look, says the
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  Lord, the one who trembles at my word. Now that's one dimension.
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  Here's the other dimension, Matthew eleven twenty eight. Come to me. This
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  is Jesus. Now come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.
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  I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
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  for I'm gentle and lowly in heart. You will find rest for your
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  souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. God is
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  our friend, He's our savior, our Shepherd, a person with whom we
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  can relax. Yes, be close, be casual, Yes we can.
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  And He will meet you in your pajamas in the middle of the night.
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  Yes he will. I know that from a thousand experiences. So my concern
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  is that in the last forty years or so, the evangelical Church has put
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  so much emphasis on the casual, the intimate, the come as you are,
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  the accessibility of the gentle Christ, that two unfortunate things have happened.
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  One is that this emphasis has morphed into a pervasive form of entertainment, like
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  worship with an atmosphere of chipper, funny, lighthearted cheerleading, so that nothing
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  would feel more natural than to grab your drink and join the party as we
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  go into the worship space. And the other effect is this lopsided emphasis on
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  the casual proach shability of God. Is that the kind of existential encounter with
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  the Majesty of God that I'm talking about has become for many people inconceivable and
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  therefore undesirable. And the irony of this is that I'm really a low church
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  kind of guy. I don't think the solution to this problem is the embrace
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  of a prescribed formal liturgy. I think that approach to corporate worship does not
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  provide enough freedom and is too vulnerable to sounding like empty rote recitation. I
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  think the way forward is not rules. I think the way forward. In
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  fact, when I think about rules, I don't think that in thirty three
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  years as a pastor, I ever said anything to people about bringing drinks into
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  the sanctuary pro or God. I don't think I ever mentioned it in thirty
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  three years. The heart of the problem is not the absence of rules,
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  but the absence of reverence. So the way forward is one a fuller,
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  deeper vision of God, two a more God centered, serious, passionate Bible
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  saturated whole counsel of God preaching, and three a worship leadership that fosters an
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  atmosphere of sustained God focused experiential gladness and gravity with minimal distractions from a radically
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  vertical orientation. So maybe next time, Tony, we could go there.
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  We could try to get more nitty gritty practical for pastors and people about how
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  they can move a church away from inappropriate casualness in worship towards something better.
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  Yeah, let's do that. Thank you for this response, Pastor John.
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  The heart of the matter is not the coffee mug in hand. It's the
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  absence of a kind of experience with God that would make a Christian soul long
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  for regular encounters with God and his people that are so profoundly satisfying in the
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  depth of their being, with his majesty and his sweetness, and the seriousness
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  of their joy and the weightiness of His glory, that a coffee mug would
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  simply feel strangely out of place. Wow. And I know, I know
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  some of you are listening, and you're like, there's no actual way that
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  Piper didn't see such a huge response to his tweet. And actually I can
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  believe it entirely because I vividly remember ABJA sixty two way back in twenty thirteen,
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  about almost eleven years now. I asked him if he reads and studies
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  his comments on social media and he said to me no, and he explained
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  why check that out ABJA sixty two. It's an oldie, but an essential
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  episode for understanding John Piper. And if you want to ask Pastor John about
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  his tweets, other things, anything, type out your question and email it
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  to me at ask Pastor John at Desiring goodt dot org. That's our email
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  address, asked Pastor John at Desiringgod dot org into the nitty gritty of how
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  to build this reverential vibe into our Sunday morning gatherings. What's up next?
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  I'm your host from your rank you see Thursday