One of the advantages of being part of a church that also plants other churches is that you’re rarely allowed to rest on your laurels. We’re in the process of relaunching our Wicker Park site as we go from evenings to mornings there while also getting ready to launch our Woodlawn/Hyde Park site early next year. As colleagues at our staff table talk about what they’re doing to get ready, it reminds me of some of the things I did (or tried to do) when we first started out three years ago.
Jim Griffith, a church planting guru, noted that church planting is a contact sport, meaning, you have to get out there, meet people, speak in front of groups, let people know who you are. As one who tends toward introversion, I’ve had to push myself to do this and as we’ve become more established, it’s easy to simply take care of the system (the church) rather than continuing to meet people. Certainly the system needs tending so I can’t make contacts like I did at the beginning, but neither should I totally ignore it.
So I decided recently to set a goal for myself. I walk our dog every morning and I tend to put in my headphones, listen to podcast and tune the world out. Occasionally, I’ll come across another dog walker and I may smile, allow our dogs to sniff each other, but then hurry along my way. My goal, then, is to unplug and introduce myself to at least one fellow dog walker each week.
I started yesterday. I took Stella (our dog) out and within two minutes, saw a guy that I recognized. I must admit that my first reaction was, “Oh, man, already?” and my second reaction was, “Well, maybe our dogs won’t come close.” But they did. Stella wandered over and his black lab did as well. As they started sniffing, I said, “You know, I see you around but have never introduced myself. I’m Chris."
He warmly smiled. "Hi Chris, I’m Larry and this (he pointed to his dog) is Stanley." And we had a nice 3-minute conversation. Now I will know Larry and that will allow further relationship building.
You may read this and think, what’s the big deal? but it is a big deal for me. I’m stretching, growing, building. Thanks be to God. Or, in this case, dog.