Alright. We all saw it. The infamous controversy over the new Starbucks cups.

In case you somehow missed it, there are Christians (supposedly) who weren’t all too thrilled that Starbucks went minimalist this year and removed all holiday/Christmas emblems from their holiday cups. (I must have somehow missed back when baby Jesus was on the cup. Bummer.)

Here’s why I think this controversy really mattered, and should matter to Christians and non-Christians alike: The media set out to make the Christian community look petty, nitpicky and irrational, and in the end, it achieved the opposite.

In a time when it seems that everyone, particularly the media, is just waiting for and expecting backlash from the Christian community about, well, apparently everything, Christians took this opportunity to prove them wrong.

Now, granted, its possible at this point since so few of those offended have actually surfaced (as far as I can tell) that the Christian community got duped into defending itself against something that hardly existed to begin with. But even so, it gave Christians a forum to tell the world what really matters to them.

A flurry of posts all over social media showed Christians proclaiming what they actually think matters, and expressing that they couldn’t care less about the design of a paper cup. And they took the opportunity to show that, as a whole, they’re really not about creating controversy over senseless issues.

On a more global level, it has been a good reminder for everyone, Christians and non-Christians, that we can’t label or draw conclusions about a whole people group based on what we see on the news. So often we are only shown one very small part of the picture, from one very small part of the whole.

So, thank you media for throwing fuel on an unnecessary fire, and for giving the Christian community a platform to show people what they are really about, or in this case, what they’re really not about.

And more than anything, the Starbucks marketing team and I thank you for the constant reminder that its holiday season at Starbucks…peppermint mochas are back!