Jump directly to the Content
Jump directly to the Content

Sermon Illustrations

Home > Sermon Illustrations

Busy Man Accomplishes Nothing

Rafael Antonio Lozano is a man with a mission, albeit a strange one. The 33-year-old computer programmer from Plano, Texas, is on a quest to visit every company-owned Starbucks on the planet.

Lozano, who calls himself Winter, began his mission in 1997, when there were 1,304 such stores worldwide. As of 2019, Winter is a little more than halfway there (Starbucks currently has more than 35,711 stores around the world as of 7/23), but on Wednesday he hit a major milestone, visiting lucky store No. 15,000: a Starbucks in Lima, Peru. When that location opened in 2003, it was the first Starbucks to open in South America. Today, there are over 1,000 on the continent.

Despite his impressive pace, Winter is realistic about the nature of his quest, saying, "As long as they keep building Starbucks, I'll never be finished." He is also realistic about the importance of his mission. "Every time I reach a Starbucks, I feel like I've accomplished something," he said, "when actually I've accomplished nothing."

Related Sermon Illustrations

God Expects Us to Be Ourselves

The 19th century rabbi and teacher Reb Zusya, a short while before his death, said, "In the world to come I shall not be asked: 'Why were you not Moses?' I shall be asked, ...

[Read More]

Mt. Everest Climber Had the Wrong Goal

In his best-selling book, Into Thin Air, John Krakauer tells the story of the ill-fated expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. In the book he mentions a member of the expedition ...

[Read More]