I ran across an old email to a friend the other day that described an encounter that I had during Jury duty about four years ago. I thought maybe it was a story worth telling.

I had relished the idea of having jury duty because it is so seldom that I get the opportunity spend a whole day reading and so I had prepared by bringing several books. As soon as we got checked in and we were free to wander around a bit, I headed straight for the cafeteria and ordered a nice, tall cup of flavored hot coffee. I sat at a small table and started quietly reading. A young woman came up and asked if she could share my table. “Of course,” I replied, but part of me was slightly disappointed. I had wanted to read and now I was faced with a feeling that I couldn’t ignore someone sitting across from me at my table, especially since she didn’t appear to have a book of her own. Since she wasn’t reading and was just staring into space, I put down my book and made a comment about the good coffee. She instantly took my bait and we started up a conversation about jury duty. It was her first time, but I have a little experience with it, and so I was explaining to her what I knew to be the process.

Read the rest of this entry »

The powers that be decided that I should move from my office to another one. I was pretty upset about it, and I think it was fairly obvious to everyone within a five mile radius. I’m not too good about hiding my unhappiness and it caused me to stop and think about how we deal with the problems of our lives.

I was a very sensitive child growing up. I didn’t deal with conflict much and when confronted with problems, I would just ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen. That went on for a long time until I got to be in high school, and then I started to wake up. When I was in my early twenties, I learned that I could stand up for myself and people would respect me for it. At that point, I started to take control and fight for my own rights. That isn’t the way it is now that I’m in my forties. Now I’m just another cranky old lady, and it doesn’t look as good on me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I’d post a quick report on the DE Seminar I did yesterday at the West End Assembly of God Church (SOMA group) in Richmond, VA.  It was a really good weekend.

Brian King is the pastor of young adults there.  He’s a very cool, very bright 40-something leader who has attracted a fairly large group of very cool, very bright 20 and 30-something leaders who are about to launch a new service in this very large, getting really cool AG church.  I had a fantastic dinner at Brian’s place with his family and his leaders on Thursday night.  We ate burgers and brats, did an overview of the seminar, and watched the Olympics too long.  Friday I met Brian down at the church in the morning to meet his tech team and set up the equipment/stage/etc. (I’m a tad tech paranoid).  The church is about 99% MAC, which made my life really peaceful.  Great facility, great people.  We then went to lunch (with Brian’s family).  Turns out his wife Laura is the daughter of Nicky Cruz (The Cross and the Switchblade; Run Baby Run).  And they have two beautiful, brilliant and precocious kids (Asher and Cannan) who were amazingly well behaved given the fact that they  had to hang out with a bunch of adults most of the weekend.  

Friday night I had dinner with two of the three “lost interview” consultants (we pay them to give us their opinions on stage) and their friend, Powell, who got them to agree to do this.  Spent about two hours chatting and filling them in on how the interview would go.  Went back to my room and watched the Raiders lose by one point (but they looked pretty good, still, I thought).  

Saturday was the Seminar.  Got to the venue at 7:45 and set up my stuff.  Spent some time with the tech people and with Brian and met more of his group as they arrived.  We launched a little after nine and it all went really, really well.  Had about 80 or 90 people there, I think (I don’t know exactly, but that’s what it looked like to me), about 75% were from the SOMA group and the rest were from the other services there at WEAG.  Oh, and one guy from another church who kind of hangs out at SOMA.  

We ended around 3:45 and I stayed around for a spontaneous discussion time with about 12 of the SOMA leaders/group members.  They also wanted to pray over me, which was very cool.  I am always so encouraged to be with this age group, but these folks in particular were stimulating, enthusiastic and intelligent.  They asked great questions, had brilliant insights and we would have continued talking for much longer had we not been asked to vacate the room.  That was a highlight for me.

The “lost interview” went well, too.  Three guys (Jon, Ryan and Eddie).  Jon was in his thirties, married, two kids, a VP at some local company and an atheist who was raised a conservative Jew.  Ryan was a 20-something who works as an IT guy at a local career college, had a really interesting (violent) childhood, and would probably be described as respectfully agnostic.  Eddie was a late twenty-something who works at the same college as Ryan (and is roomates with Ryan) as the director of financial aid, is an agnostic former Baptist who is gay.  Great stories, and they all had powerful things to say to us about how we could do better at connecting with people like them.  

So it was a blast.  I’m a little tired and ready to be home with Sandy (and my ready to pop pregnant daughter, Bethany).  Thanks to all of you who prayed for this event, and to all of you who helped make it happen.  It was an honor to be there.