you drink your coffee, I sip my tea…*

I like coffee. That statement will not be a surprise to anyone who knows me. I don’t like tea. That is a lesser-known fact about me. My wife, Sally, likes tea. She does not like coffee. I think that this means we are ideally-suited in our beverage consumption as it means we can each choose our favourite (fairly traded) tea and coffee and not upset the other at all.

There is one way in which this difference of preference causes a dissonance. When we are out and about and decide to stop for a beverage break I will choose to have coffee and Sally chooses tea. Usually that means that she is supplied with a small teapot, a small milk jug and (sometimes) a pot of hot water to top up the teapot. That (apparently) is the right way to make tea. But it takes so much longer than simply drinking the cup of coffee put in front of me. There are usually at least two cups of tea available to Sally in the teapot whereas (unless I have struck gold and found somewhere with a ‘bottomless coffee pot’) I am limited to the contents of the cup in front of me.

I confess that I am sometimes a little impatient as Sally completes the tea-making ceremony for the second time and I am staring at the bottom of an empty coffee cup. Sally is gracious about this but still feels that it is right not to waste any tea and consume both cups.

I could drink twice as slowly as Sally so we finish together.

I could order a second cup of coffee.

I could change my drinking habits and start liking tea so we could drink together.

I could learn patience.

I need to find ways of accommodating Sally’s preferences in my own preferences. This may involve me changing how I do things. This may involve sacrifice (tea drinking, for example). I try to do these things because I love her and do not want her to feel a pressure to drink quicker or leave tea behind (almost pun intended).

So in what ways in the rest of life and in the life and mission of our church are we prepared to demonstrate God’s love by changing, adapting, sacrificing in order that others, especially those who are newcomers, may be included and involved without being made to feel that they have to change too much to belong to us? I am not suggesting we compromise our core beliefs, but are there attitudes and behaviour that we have elevated to the level of core beliefs?

I know of a church where a young couple came on an Alpha course and were welcomed with open arms. They started attending church services and were welcomed with open arms. But they were living together and were not married. The Minister went to speak to them about this, saying that they should marry or stop living together if they were to continue to come to church.

Core beliefs? Attitudes? Behaviour? What would Jesus have done? What would I do? What would you do?