Tribute to three years at Grace DC

[this third and final essay I dedicate to my beloved fellow staff members with
Grace DC]

Select some experience from which you have derived exceptional benefit and describe it, explaining its value to you.

It’s 1:35, and I’m hustling along my favorite strip of Pennsylvania Avenue SE. But its cafes and bookstore and happy lunchtime crowd of Hill staffers is lost on me as I scurry to my appointment, late again.

As I enter the Starbucks on the corner, “our Starbucks” as labeled by me and my coworkers, I breeze past the ever-present line and busy baristas. Up the back stairs I climb to the second floor, and voila, I’m only the third person there. Phew, beat the boss.

It’s that time of the week again, staff meeting.

Staff meetings in my experience have been as varied as the organizations and bosses I have worked for. Often they have been stiff, tedious affairs where only my enjoyment of my coworkers’ individual personalities and my own optimism has kept me coming. Not that I had a choice.

But staff meeting at Starbucks has been different. The church for which I work did not own office space for its first three years of existence, and I and my coworkers officed out of our homes. Where else would we meet but the coffee shop? And what better place would represent the whole staff meeting experience for us?

It was the highlight of my week, and my coworkers became my primary community in DC. We would gather together, banter and laugh, share stories and reports of the workweek or from our personal lives. Our boss would assign books at various times that we would read during the week and discuss together, books about Washington DC or about personal growth. And later we would go over the business at hand.

It was this group of true friends to whom I could voice struggles that I could barely admit to myself. It was to them I went for help and advice and prayer. More Starbucks napkins wiped tears than coffee spills, and that’s saying a lot.

“What stood out to you in this section of the book?” Glenn, my boss would ask, creating a freedom to expound disagreements and insights. This freedom carried over into our prayer time where we could share what was going on in our lives under the surface of efficiency and smiles. Such authenticity on a leadership level trickles down to the entire church congregation, not to mention the healthy staff culture and strong friendships it sustains.

Our Starbucks days are over now that we have office space, but staff meeting and the “coffee shop atmosphere” are going strong. And now that we’re thrown together in the office five days a week, the foundation of respect and openness is showing up in compatibility, equality, and true enjoyment of one another. I may be sick of Starbucks coffee by now, but thanks to their store on Pennsylvania Avenue, I’m by no means sick of my coworkers.