Photo on allposters.com
Recently, my wife asked me when I started drinking coffee. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I started drinking it at a very early age – at the age of 10 years old. Now, before all of you start judging my parents, let me qualify the statement.
I remember going into my parents’ store which was located in the South Side Chicago (the hood) on Saturday mornings. There were times where I was so tired that my parents would give me a concoction of: dime size amount of Folgers coffee power, massive amount of cream and a good amount of sugar. It was the best drink ever – well, at least for a 10 year old.
Every time I drank it, I was able to stay awake and attend to my duties as I helped around the store. Then I began to find myself “desiring” this sweet, light brown concoction every time I went to help out my parents at the store.
This is how it all got started.
When I told Christina, she was just in shock (shook her head in disbelief) as she heard me recount those golden years.
But it wasn’t until college where I really began to appreciate coffee. As I got weaned off the coffee with cream and sugar, I started to drink it “black” for the actual coffee taste. Then over the years, I have become somewhat of a connoisseur on coffee as my taste buds were being trained to taste the difference between a dark roast and a light roast, the varying acidity levels, and etc.
As I was reflecting on this, I realized that the early introduction of “coffee” (even though it was more like a hot sweet, cream drink) put me on a course of loving and enjoying coffee.
I couldn’t help but to make the correlation with the importance of introducing values at an early age. If the Barna statistics are true, then it is imperative that we reach the next generation at a young age.
This is why I am so committed to reaching the next generation of “world shakers and history makers” through the college ministry. The college years are a transformative life stage. As students are in a stage of discovery, they are making some important decisions. If they can make a commitment to Christ, it will literally change the course of their destiny.
Therefore, I will continue to be an evangelist for Jesus and a coffee-evangelist. I am thankful that I experienced both before the 20 years old.
One of my pastor friends (@harvestpd) forwarded me this video on coffee. I am more convinced than ever.