The other day I was at the bar before 9am. No one was there yet, and I wasn’t too surprised. But I knew that they’d be there soon enough. I was right. By 10am the place was buzzing. People talking, laughing, having a good time, enjoying a beverage…cold or hot. Then the band started, and that pretty much set the atmosphere for the morning. A little later somebody got up and talked…real funny guy…a visitor from Arkansas. He made everybody laugh, and he was real smart and then he got serious and so did the rest of us. Then some of us stayed for lunch at the restaurant upstairs. Me and my friends call this ‘church.’ We do it about once a week. And yes, we do it in a bar. A real bar with neon beer logos on the wall and a view of the Sun Harbor Marina on St. Andrews Bay that is just beautiful. The bar is called “Dock of the Bay” and it sits on…ummm…a dock…on a bay. Thus the name. And yes, there is a dynamite restaurant upstairs. Great food, great atmosphere. What a cool place to have church. It was not really my dream to have church in a bar. It is a value for our church to avoid a permanent location as long as possible. See, we don’t think of the church as a building, but as a people. I know lots of other folks say they believe the same thing, but they mostly meet in church buildings. We meet in a bar. We’re not better than church-building churches. We’re just trying to live out our values. Lots of people think it’s a cool idea to have church in a bar. Like us. We think it’s a great idea. There’s chairs, tables and walls. Room enough for everyone. We didn’t have to buy chairs, tables or walls. We can spend that money on other stuff. We like to spend as much money as we can on helping others. We do this ministry called “Angel Food.” It helps get people cheap groceries. We also do this thing called “The Cars of Christmas” and it helps people get...well, cars. At Christmas. It’s cool to do things to help people and not have to worry about chairs and tables and walls. ‘Cause we meet in a bar. People who think it’s a cool idea to have church in a bar usually say something about our church hanging out with people who Jesus would have hung out with. Like people who go to bars. They talk about how Jesus loves and accepts everyone, even those who go to bars. People are accepted in a bar. Our whole church goes to bars… one called ‘Dock of the Bay’ in particular. Anyway, we accept people the way they are the very best we can. And we love them because we love the Jesus who accepts them the way they are. Some of our folks have been hurt in other churches so they don’t feel comfortable in a conventional church building. Some folks may have never been to church much but they’ve been to bars a lot, so they are more at home in a bar. I’ve been to a lot of bars and a lot of churches. I figure folks go to bars and churches for a lot the same reasons. Because they’re hurting, lonely, needing love and someone to talk to. Or maybe because they’re in the habit of going. Whatever your reason for wanting to see church done in a different way, we welcome you at CrossBridge. Dock of the Bay Restaurant and Lounge, Sundays at 10am.

Angel Food 062808

Today (Saturday, June 28th) we had Angel Food Distribution. Every month we take orders for people who want to buy cheap food. It’s a great deal and I guess it really helps a lot of people. The thing has grown incredibly…almost doubling every single month that we’ve done it so far. We started with around 30 boxes and this month we had 664. (Two more boxes and we would have certainly had to explain to someone that we’re NOT the antichrist.) So these 664 boxes of food came in on a big truck from Georgia. People waited in line for hours to get their food just like they were waiting to get tickets for the next Rolling Stones concert. One family was there 2½ hours before time for delivery. Their wait was not significantly longer than most of the others. It was hot and humid and just about everybody had to stand for a couple hours to get their food. We had some cold drinks for them (thanks, Buffalo Rock) and we tried to make them laugh. And we tried to make them feel like someone cares for them. I told our volunteers that it was important to see people as people with feelings and needs and emotions and not just as another pair of hands holding another box of food as they move through the line. We wanted them to feel God’s presence as they picked up their food. Still, I would have been ticked if I had to spend a chunk of my Saturday waiting in a food line. Got stuff to do, you know. But these people were happy. I didn’t experience any bad attitudes or rude people. I couldn’t believe it. Hundreds and hundreds of people standing in the heat for hours and no one’s complaining. What if you had to stand in line next to someone who talked too much or had an annoying laugh? No bad attitudes, no complaining. At least I didn’t hear it. Someone said that its positive proof that God is working through this food ministry. Maybe they’re right. I was there to serve others. But I was the one who got touched. An experience of God’s presence was being extended to me through the ones there to get food. Everything was upside-down. We’re working on getting the process better streamlined to handle the volume of people coming through. But there seemed to be something very healthy and very healing about the waiting. Maybe its because it gave people a chance to slow down and not have to be busy for a little while. Maybe its because we need community so bad and people were able to connect with each other in the line. I know that rest and community are things that I need desperately. I would never have thought to go looking for them in a food line.

Blogging through the busy-ness

OK, so my wife Ev says that I don’t have time to blog. She’s right, you know. The last thing I need is to start doing something else, especially something that has the potential to be time consuming. Like blogging. At this writing I’m working a full-time job (www.lifemanagementcenter.org) and a part-time job (www.davelloydmusic.com) as well as being a pastor (www.crossbridgepc.org) and father and husband. (See pics!) And I just started managing a band. (www.myspace.com/stainedglasscharade) Time for blogging? Yeah, right. But here I am. I keep telling myself that I’ll have more time later and I just have to keep plugging along doing all the things I’m doing and things will get better. Someday maybe I’ll be able to quit my normal job and work full-time for the church or get a well-paying gig or win the lotto. Then I’ll have plenty of time for blogging. And prayer. And taking a Sabbath once a week. Then I’ll be able to spend more time with the kids, take my wife on dates and keep my desk neat. And clean out my car. And spend more time on my sermons. And see my friends. And go to concerts. And movies. It’ll be just great. But none of these things would actually simplify my life even if they happened. In fact, its exhausting thinking about all the things I’ll have time to do if I could just simplify my life. Something’s very wrong with this picture. Is it just me? Sadly, no. Its pretty much all of us. Time is so a precious. We work so hard to try to create more of it, but we can’t. Think about all of the time-saving and convenience items that we find non-negotiable that were unheard of 50 years ago. • Cell phones (aren’t cells what you find in prisons?) • fast food (since when do we categorize sustenance by velocity?) • personal computers (Don’t ask who owns one. Its personal.) • 24 hour banking (who has time for that??) I could go on. But why do we have less time now? No…why do I have less time? I’m calling people on the phone while I’m eating my lunch and driving down the road. I can do at least three things at a time that used to be done one at a time. So I should have more time to watch the first season DVD of ‘24’, right? I should have hours at the end of the day that I earned fair and square by doing a bunch of things at once. Blogging? I’ll just do it while I’m eating breakfast in the shower. It won’t take up any more time. I promise, honey. The things that are supposed to free us of time constraints, allowing us more time for the things that matter…don’t. They don’t deliver what they promise. And I don’t deliver much of anything at all no matter how good my motivation. I’m just running out of time. Not enough hours in the day. Maybe time cheats and punishes us for multi-tasking. Maybe five minutes of multi-tasking ends up costing us an hour of normal time. Maybe it’s taken away slowly over the entire day so we don’t notice it. Time is smart, you know. Our church is starting house church meetings…a home group/small group type meeting. We just started…have had 3 meetings, I think. Supposed to have these every other week, because every week would be WAY too busy. Wouldn’t be able to keep up our blogging then. But we can’t even do every other week. Too much time doing 24 hour banking, I guess. Ironically at house church we’re doing a book study on “The Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster…this being one of the foremost books on the practice of the ancient Christian spiritual disciplines. Like solitude, and prayer and meditation…things that should be practiced in our world. Things that help us confront the busy-ness of our world head-on by creating space and time for God. We need this bad, especially here in our world where we’ve got “so much more to think about…deadlines and commitments…” We’re trying to study a book about changing our lives to become deeper and simpler. And we don’t have time to meet because our lives are too shallow and complex. Maybe we should try having our meetings while shopping or cleaning out the garage. As much as I want to convince myself otherwise, my schedule is not the problem. Nor is our culture with its gadgets and stressors. Its me. I have the problem with when I say yes and no, when to be present and not just there. I’m the problem, and I, by God’s grace must become the answer. So, I guess I’ll blog. Even if my blogging is sparse, I’ll blog. And I’ll pray. And I’ll get away sometimes and spend some time in the woods or on the beach. And I’ll squeeze in a chunk of Sabbath every week or so. And I’ll play with my kids and date my wife. And I’ll refuse to live on the surface. So there.