Let's Digress

ReChurch 2014, Part 3

The second day of ReChurch 2014 was my favorite. Hands down.

For parts 1 and 2, click these links: Part 1, Part 2.

Day two: I woke up at 6 a.m. and literally fell out of bed. But only after being scared half to death by my alarm clock, which, after actively using it for over 2 years, still scares me like no other. To put it in perspective, it frightens me more than having to go to Walmart on Labor Day weekend to buy hamburger meat—something I’ll never do again. I don’t care how desperately my family needs their turkey burgers.

Labor Day weekend 2012 was a frightening day for me, but we’re going to treat it like Fight Club and just not talk about it. Ever.

So, I fell out of bed, did the whole “get a shower, get dressed, and use copious amounts of hair gel” thing, then I poured my freshly brewed coffee inside that tardis cup tumbler.

Was it called a tardis? I think it was. Wait, no. Yes, Doctor Who has a tervis, and the cup is a tardis.

Unless I mixed up my labels again…just like that time when I mixed up the flour and baking powder. Again, another Fight Club moment.

Fast-forward about 75 minutes to when I met Zach at the church; we walked inside and said “good morning” to Mark’s (he’s the “executive pastor” or something) mother.

Mark’s mom is awesome. She’s kind of the person with the hook-up for all things Creeky (another term I have that’s patent pending). In other words, she’s my equivalent to Rose from The Golden Girls.

Side note: I also found out she would be more than happy to bury me in the side yard of her house if I ever do anything stupid. I found that comment to be both oddly reassuring and frightening, but not nearly as frightening as that Labor Day shopping thing.

We found our seats and watched as a Shanless Brock walked on stage and started saying words about something. I don’t quite remember what it was, because, yet again, I was distracted, hyper (I blame Mark’s mom for giving me coffee), and I just wasn’t in the mood to listen yet.

I halfway heard the Shanless Brock mention he was going to read the best Tweets from day 1, and, naturally, he read one of mine first. It was about that squishy light bulb.

Then I heard him say my name.

Instinctively, I froze in place with that deer-in-the-headlights look on my face.

I think Zach froze, too, but with all of the newly released adrenaline flowing through my veins, everything was kind of a blur.

Shanless Brock then started to say good things about the Part 1 blog from the day before. I was shocked.

I can only assume that my new hyperactive behavior was either the pre-existing adrenaline in my system mixing with an endorphin release, or I was being touched by the Holy Spirit.

It could’ve been both.

Regardless, Zach said that it was “no excuse for me to bounce around like a hyperactive-yet-adorable child blah blah blah stern responsible grownup words blah blah blah.”

I tried to contain myself, but I don’t think it worked; the well-seasoned (oldish) guy in front of us seemed to be somewhat distracted by my behavior.

The worship was great! Definitely the best acoustic-esk singing in which I’ve ever participated. It was closely rivaled by this Skillet concert where they did an acoustic version of one of their songs. That was great too, but I think this was better.

Music Guy Tom really outdid himself.

After that, this pastor-esk dude (I think his name was Seth) came out and said some words about the Jesus.

It was very well done, but for most of the talk I couldn’t stop thinking that he looked like the emcee kid from the Pitch Perfect movie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) when they did the singing auditions towards the beginning of the movie.

I knew after that scene I would never be an acapella superstar, but I digress.

Zach and I decided to go to Mark’s workshop; it was called Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership (or something dramatic like that with the words “dark side” in it).

I thought it was about Star Wars, but Zach said it wasn’t and then to prove it he showed me the pamphlet with the workshop description on it. I scanned over it and thought, “This could still totally be about Star Wars.”

It wasn’t.

It was about the dark side of leadership and different ways we behave badly when we get stressed and stuff, not Darth Vader and the dark side of the universe and this “Force” and the Enterprise space ship thing.

The pamphlet was misleading. But I’m still pretty sure Mark still could’ve tied it to Star Wars somehow; Patrick Stewart can tie in with just about anything.

Right after Zach and I sat down, Mark came over to say hi, and then he looked at Zach’s sleeve (If you want to know why, read the Part 1 blog). This both terrified and exhilarated me at the same time.

Two adrenaline rushes in one day; this is what it’s like be a manly man who lives on the edge.

Fun fact: I bought a leather jacket and pseudo-biker boots a while back to help reinforce the stereotype of what a manly man who lives on the edge looks like. All of the great manly man edge livers had them. Liam Neeson had a leather jacket in Taken, Hugh Jackman had a jacket and boots in Wolverine, and George Clooney had a Batman costume. The Batman costume was just impractical to own though, and not due to a lack of trying.

Oh, I may have also subtly (bluntly) mentioned once (several times) during this whole thing that Zach and I have a podcast too.

Anyway, during the session, Mark was telling all 60ish of us that we all have “gifts” and stuff. He told us about the “gift” of humility, and then promptly showed us repeatedly what the gift of humility doesn’t look like.

He also said that there’s a “gift” of sarcasm; he showed us what that gift looked like—in graphic detail—for the whole 75 minutes of the workshop!

Sarcasm is also my gift.

My favorite quote from Mark during the workshop was, “A sarcastic insult is the highest form of flattery.” Apparently, I’ve been complimenting people for years and not realizing it. And I’ve been complimented a lot too. Talk about a confidence booster!

Actually, I made a Simon Sinek golden circle-esk illustration thing which shows what, how, and why sarcasm is an integral part to the Jesus. (Creekers who read this: Feel free to work this into the mission statement, make some posters, etc. Just don’t have Mark’s mom bury me in her side yard; I don’t know if this counts as one of those “stupid” things or not.)

WHW2

 

 

The rest of his workshop was awesome, lots of sarcasm and a lot of Jesusy stuff.

And I found out my dark side involves being compulsive and moderately narcissistic.

But is it really being “narcissistic” if you actually are that good and wonderful?

Food for thought.

______

Oh, I also acquired Mark’s Chick-Fil-A cookie. After all, it’s not a real church conference until Chick-Fil-A gets involved.

That chocolate chunk baked dough tasted like victory.

And those were my highlights from ReChurch 2014.

I think this should become an annual thing.

 

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