So...what do you do?
 
This has quickly one of the top questions asked of me recently, along with when are you going to start worshiping (we don’t know) and where are you going to worship (we don’t know that either). I can, however, answer this question. I can usually tell when it’s about to be asked because the person hesitates a bit. S/he is trying to figure out the best way to ask it, but finally s/he gives up and simply asks it. What do you do during the day? I don’t have a sermon to prepare. I don’t have parishioners. There are no committees. It’s a great question. Here’s what I did yesterday. 6 am: Woke up, prayer time, went for a run through Little Italy 9:15 am: Walked to the Roosevelt stop (which is about four blocks away) and hopped on the green line to meet with a person who’s an active member of First UMC, Chicago (aka the Chicago Temple). He’s a young adult (late 20s) who works at an office at the Ogilvie Transportation Center. It was interesting hearing his insights about being a young adult Christian in the city as well as being a new father. It was a great conversation and I was hoping that he might have other people that I could contact to see if they’d be interested in this new church, but nothing came to mind. He said he’d think about it. 11 am: Walked east on Madison for an 11:45 lunch with someone who’s already a part of the new church. Made a deposit at the bank and arrived at our lunch early so I answered email on my iPhone--mostly trying to schedule more 1-on-1 meetings, but also chatting with the conference treasurer about some budget questions. That’s what I spend most of my time doing. Scheduling and praying that people respond to my calls and emails! 11:55 am: Lunch, checking in, giving an update on what we’re doing, fishing for more contacts plus he also said he’d think about people he knows who might be potential babysitters. Bonus! 1:20 pm: Hopped on the #4 bus down Michigan Ave. Got off at Roosevelt and switched to the #12 bus to meet with Trey and Lisl Heymans Paul, a UMC pastor who’s one of the campus ministers at the Agape House at the U. of Illinois-Chicago. I learned last week that if you include UIC (which isn’t technically part of the South Loop but it’s close) that the South Loop has the highest concentration of college students anywhere in the country--65,000. Columbia College, Roosevelt, Robert Morris, DePaul, UIC and Ill. Institute of Technology (which is a little south of the South Loop) are all in this area. Lisl gave us the scoop on UIC and we all talked about how we might be in ministry together. UIC is part of a neighborhood called University Village, which is pretty much the half-way point for the South and West Loop neighborhoods. The Agape House is a great facility in a great location and when Lisl said, “Mi casa, su casa,” I think Trey and started wondering how we can make use of this space. 3 pm: Got back on the #12 bus. Realized I left my keys at home (Anne and the kids were at the Museum of Science and Industry) so I went to the Starbucks on Roosevelt and Wabash and, you guessed it, spent the next hour or so making more phone calls and sending more emails in the hopes of getting meetings with people. 5:15 pm: Home, exhausted. It actually takes a lot out of me doing all this. After time with the kids and dinner and a family walk of the dog and getting the kids to bed... 8:45 pm: Wrote some notes to people who have given financial contributions to the ministry. All of this is obviously not rocket science, but it certainly is a different way of doing church for me. It energizes me 90 percent of the time, but I think it will be nice when we start getting some people who, after these meetings, say, I’m in. That’s our prayer!
Friday, July 17, 2009