I'm a person who makes things happen.
Not sure why, though. I am, at heart, rather anti-social. Or a-social. Or sub-social.
For example, today was week 3 of my break from Sunday morning church at the Motel. Next week is Breakfast and the next installment in what has turned out to be the "Continuing Adventures of Tony and Walt".
This week, my family went to visit a large Pentecostal church we used to attend (two of us did, anyway) long long ago in a galaxy far far away.
The more time I spend doing church at the Motel, the more I enter these services feeling like an "anthropologist from Mars." But it all comes back to you.
It was much as we remembered it, with a few things we'd forgotten about. One of which, for me, was the greeters.
If you aren't familiar with this particular ministry, greeters are people who stand just inside the main entry of the church building, for the purpose of shaking hands with those arriving, smiling, handing them whatever documents they'll need and then turning their attention to the next through the door.
If you are a greeter, I'm sorry, but I only consider my visit to your church a success if I manage to avoid you altogether.
It's a game I play. I've developed several strategies over time, which I'd like to share with you.
1. Choose a path that cuts exactly halfway between two greeters. This only works if they're not working in tandem (married couples, for example) but if there's room, each will assume the other is going to get you and, before they realize their mistake, you're through.
2. Assume a facial expression of urgent concern and walk quickly, looking past and over the heads of the greeters. This creates the impression that you're trying to find someone in particular right now and won't brook any delay, and greeters will respect your personal crisis, whatever it is, and let you go.
3. Carry a load that requires both hands. For example, a child and a diaper bag, if you can be rummaging through the diaper bag for something as you slip past the greeters. This may backfire if you look like it's something they may be able to help with, so use this one with caution.
4. Walk side by side with an accomplice and, just as you reach the critical threshold, turn to speak to your companion, heads close together. Try to look like you're communicating something "in confidence and just for prayer". This is also effective if you're a parent and can look like you're scolding the child walking beside you for having done something unspeakable just as the family was getting ready to leave for church, without actually humiliating your kid in the church lobby.
5. Skirt closely behind a stranger as they are being greeted. Timing is tight on this one, and if someone is standing in your path, you may be delayed long enough to find yourself face to face with the greeter, so plan your route.
So that's me.
Anyway, for some reason, I seem to make things happen. I have a history of getting groups of people to do things.
Most recently, before the Motel enterprise, I started a band. We were called StainedGlass Worship (a metaphor that works on a number of levels. I think I counted 5.) and we'd put on worship concerts. This went on for several years, and over that time, I've managed to put together a pretty respectable roster of guest musicians, as well as planning some fairly creative stuff. It was fun. There was a lot of software involved.
But I felt like I was having to stoke the engine on the train by myself all the time. Nobody ever offered to plan the next one. Few people even suggested songs or offered to perform. I'd have to go looking for them and I started getting tired.
Around that time, the first seeds of GTI were planted in my introverted brain, and for a while I was doing both.
Then on Good Friday of this year, StainedGlass had a worship concert. When it was over, I told my husband how I felt about it and we decided that I'd just wait and see whether anybody asked when the next one would be.
That was almost 6 months ago and the only person to mention it has been a musician who wrote me to say that if we were having another one soon, he'd miss it because he's off to Israel.
Contrast that with the GTI, which over the course of two years has grown legs. It's a wonderful thing. I wasn't there on Wednesday this week (partly because our business is being audited. Yick.) and Dinner went on anyway!
!!!!!
The full-blown glory of this can only be shared by those of you out there who are driving mule trains that you know full well will come to a dead stop if you drop the reins. It's a fabulous thing to have created a thing that would continue in your absence. Ministry entrepreneurs, feel free to marvel.
I had lunch with B. and Z. this week, 'cause they knew I needed it, and we ended up talking about the apostle Paul. A guy who got things started, then moved on, but stayed connected. B. and I really connect with that right now. Funny, 'cause we've never discussed the future before, but we're both thinking the same thing.
Not that I'm leaving. No. I have friends there and I like it too much.
But, like I said, I have a history of getting things started, and my feet are getting itchy. I'm starting to wonder what might be next. I'd like to spend some time recording some of my songs (BTW, PJ, can I borrow a mic sometimes?), singing in some different places, writing some stories, and telling them.
I don't know what might come of any of that, but it's monstrously freeing to know that if I drop the reins of GTI, there are other hands already there.
r
Not sure why, though. I am, at heart, rather anti-social. Or a-social. Or sub-social.
For example, today was week 3 of my break from Sunday morning church at the Motel. Next week is Breakfast and the next installment in what has turned out to be the "Continuing Adventures of Tony and Walt".
This week, my family went to visit a large Pentecostal church we used to attend (two of us did, anyway) long long ago in a galaxy far far away.
The more time I spend doing church at the Motel, the more I enter these services feeling like an "anthropologist from Mars." But it all comes back to you.
It was much as we remembered it, with a few things we'd forgotten about. One of which, for me, was the greeters.
If you aren't familiar with this particular ministry, greeters are people who stand just inside the main entry of the church building, for the purpose of shaking hands with those arriving, smiling, handing them whatever documents they'll need and then turning their attention to the next through the door.
If you are a greeter, I'm sorry, but I only consider my visit to your church a success if I manage to avoid you altogether.
It's a game I play. I've developed several strategies over time, which I'd like to share with you.
1. Choose a path that cuts exactly halfway between two greeters. This only works if they're not working in tandem (married couples, for example) but if there's room, each will assume the other is going to get you and, before they realize their mistake, you're through.
2. Assume a facial expression of urgent concern and walk quickly, looking past and over the heads of the greeters. This creates the impression that you're trying to find someone in particular right now and won't brook any delay, and greeters will respect your personal crisis, whatever it is, and let you go.
3. Carry a load that requires both hands. For example, a child and a diaper bag, if you can be rummaging through the diaper bag for something as you slip past the greeters. This may backfire if you look like it's something they may be able to help with, so use this one with caution.
4. Walk side by side with an accomplice and, just as you reach the critical threshold, turn to speak to your companion, heads close together. Try to look like you're communicating something "in confidence and just for prayer". This is also effective if you're a parent and can look like you're scolding the child walking beside you for having done something unspeakable just as the family was getting ready to leave for church, without actually humiliating your kid in the church lobby.
5. Skirt closely behind a stranger as they are being greeted. Timing is tight on this one, and if someone is standing in your path, you may be delayed long enough to find yourself face to face with the greeter, so plan your route.
So that's me.
Anyway, for some reason, I seem to make things happen. I have a history of getting groups of people to do things.
Most recently, before the Motel enterprise, I started a band. We were called StainedGlass Worship (a metaphor that works on a number of levels. I think I counted 5.) and we'd put on worship concerts. This went on for several years, and over that time, I've managed to put together a pretty respectable roster of guest musicians, as well as planning some fairly creative stuff. It was fun. There was a lot of software involved.
But I felt like I was having to stoke the engine on the train by myself all the time. Nobody ever offered to plan the next one. Few people even suggested songs or offered to perform. I'd have to go looking for them and I started getting tired.
Around that time, the first seeds of GTI were planted in my introverted brain, and for a while I was doing both.
Then on Good Friday of this year, StainedGlass had a worship concert. When it was over, I told my husband how I felt about it and we decided that I'd just wait and see whether anybody asked when the next one would be.
That was almost 6 months ago and the only person to mention it has been a musician who wrote me to say that if we were having another one soon, he'd miss it because he's off to Israel.
Contrast that with the GTI, which over the course of two years has grown legs. It's a wonderful thing. I wasn't there on Wednesday this week (partly because our business is being audited. Yick.) and Dinner went on anyway!
!!!!!
The full-blown glory of this can only be shared by those of you out there who are driving mule trains that you know full well will come to a dead stop if you drop the reins. It's a fabulous thing to have created a thing that would continue in your absence. Ministry entrepreneurs, feel free to marvel.
I had lunch with B. and Z. this week, 'cause they knew I needed it, and we ended up talking about the apostle Paul. A guy who got things started, then moved on, but stayed connected. B. and I really connect with that right now. Funny, 'cause we've never discussed the future before, but we're both thinking the same thing.
Not that I'm leaving. No. I have friends there and I like it too much.
But, like I said, I have a history of getting things started, and my feet are getting itchy. I'm starting to wonder what might be next. I'd like to spend some time recording some of my songs (BTW, PJ, can I borrow a mic sometimes?), singing in some different places, writing some stories, and telling them.
I don't know what might come of any of that, but it's monstrously freeing to know that if I drop the reins of GTI, there are other hands already there.
r
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