4 of 5

Kenney tells CT that price will not be relevant to the store. "You don't walk into a Wal-Mart and expect good customer service; you don't walk into Macy's and expect to get a bargain. A healthy CBA bookstore will know who they are and what their value equation is—and this might have a lot of different looks."

One "look" might be found at the House of James in Abbotsford, British Columbia. It began as a coffeehouse ministry to young people in 1970. Fifty-four-year-old owner Lando Klassen, who has sold books since he was 19, has taken the store through four location changes and from a 12 x 40 space to a 7,200-square-foot store (with a 5,400-square-foot expansion planned for this spring).

House of James hosts live shows by country rock, blues, jazz, and folk musicians. The store carries cookbooks, garden books, hiking guides, and classical music. "We should have some titles that non-Christians will recognize," Klassen says. "Otherwise, our stores can be pretty scary to some, too foreign. I am always looking at how I can give people more reasons to come in."

Klassen worries that the typical Christian bookstore is bland and predictable. "Folks are looking for something different. We should surprise and delight our customers."

In order to offer "something different," bookstores may need to become "third places," a term coined by author Ray Oldenburg in The Great Good Place. Third places are inviting alternatives to home and the workplace (think Starbucks).

Bookstores as third places may have different looks. A new generation is divvied up into diverse "tribes," according to David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group and coauthor of UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity … and Why It Matters. A tribe of more traditional Mosaics or Busters might shop in a conventional Christian bookstore, but fewer young adults are doing so.

For this generation, "physical places are important," Kinnaman says. "They need to feel comfortable in the space you create. They are wired to be loyal to their friends—a loyalty that supersedes loyalty to retailers."

Traditional Christian bookstores are often embraced by more conservative Christians as safe places to shop, with no worries about sexual content, profanity, or wild theology. The larger Christian chain buyers may consider themselves gatekeepers of appropriate content.

However, Kinnaman notes that this newer generation "is less willing to be sheltered and cloistered. Adults might think they are 'dining with the Devil'—but younger adults are more comfortable thinking of themselves as exiles in a Babylonian culture. They tell us, 'We don't need you to caretake our content—we can make these decisions.' They are skeptical of places that feel antiseptic or too polished."

You'd think Bill and Tina Beyer had Kinnaman's words in mind when they opened their 5,600-square-foot SKIA store last May in Bentonville, Arkansas, a stone's throw away from Wal-Mart's headquarters. According to its website, SKIA is a Greek word that means "shadow" (as in refuge).

SKIA has 10 television screens that continuously loop skateboard and snowboard videos with Christian themes. The music veers from alternative to contemporary Christian. Its coffee and smoothie bar plus free wi-fi invite the community to "hang out for hours," Bill Beyer tells CT. It has liberal open-to-close times of 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. (11 P.M. on Fridays and Saturdays). You might see a youth group gathering over pizza, a businessman sipping a latte and working on his laptop, and a teen putting together a custom skateboard.

next page... |  4 of 5

share this page

April 2008, Vol. 52, No. 4