A pastor’s pick-up line
 
Church-planting is excruciating work. After a day of it, I need a vacation. We’re up in Pentwater, MI, at my wife’s aunt and uncle’s summer home. It’s become a wonderful retreat for us. The photo is the view from their living room. One of the many things that we’ve had to get used to in planting a church is the fact that there are no people. There is no group of people ready to welcome us, show us around, give us a little hospitality basket filled with goodies. Our new neighbors have been nice enough, but normally when a pastor goes to a new church/location there’s some sort of welcome from the existing church members. I knew we wouldn’t get that this time, but it’s still something we must adjust to. Indeed, I’ve had to come out of my shell a bit and be a little more aggressive in introducing myself to neighbors. I’ve always been somewhat of a balance between an introvert and extravert, but this is a new day so I’m walking up to strangers/neighbors, extending my hand, and praying that the conversation somehow gets around to the fact that I’m starting a new church. We went to a conference a few weeks ago about church planting and one exercise we had to participate in was to, first, come up with what essentially is a pick-up line. What’s a way that you can talk to somebody that steers the conversation around to the fact that you’re starting a new church? After each of us came up with a line, we walked around the room trying them out on each other. It felt a little awkward and some of the lines employed by these fellow planters were, frankly, a little creepy, but one of the advantages of moving to the city from the suburbs is that it gives me a line that I hope will work. I’m guessing that a majority of the time if I simply introduce myself and say that my family just moved to the neighborhood from Highland Park, that will spur the person to ask, Why? and that will give me the chance to let them know what I’m doing. That’s the hope anyway. These kinds of plans always work perfectly in my head.
Friday, July 3, 2009