**UPDATE...This just in...Starbucks unveils a new logo to coincide with its 40th anniversary. Check it out. -Url**

Like many pastors I know, I have a love/hate relationship with Starbucks.

For seven years now, as I have labored to plant, grow, and guide a church, Starbucks has been my office, my meeting space, my cafeteria, and my retreat. I'm there most work days, and I'm even there most days off to get some reading or writing time in away from the house.

Yeah—if Starbucks disappeared, I'd notice.

As with anything, though, familiarity breeds contempt. The thousands of hours I have spent in Starbucks locations all over the Portland Metro area have left me feeling at times that I'd rather be anywhere else. Please, Lord, not another day on hard wooden chairs, sipping burnt-tasting coffee, and wondering when the employees will notice the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of the safe that sets my teeth on edge every 20 minutes as it tells them it's time to make another deposit...

And yet, week after week, I return. ...