For the past few days I have really wanted to blog but have felt there is not a lot to blog about... at least in my life. The last 2 days have changed that. I have spent many hours in the local Starbucks and it has given me some great fodder. On Monday, my first real extended stay at any Starbucks, I had a conversation with a Kingston Chaplain, a local contractor and a man who I can only describe as Elton John and Mickey Rourke's love child. Our conversation started out with the Chaplain asking me how come her IPhone doesn't work seamlessly with her PC... now this is a different conversation for later but I gave her the quick and easy explanation and we moved on. After some chit chat we somehow landed on the topic of religion and more specifically the church. She explained that she was a chaplain and that she was in Belleville for the day.. meetings. As soon as the topic of church came up, the two men (Contractor and Elton Rourke) piped up. It was very interesting to hear different (outside) perspectives on the church. Both men were very jaded and bitter (very similar to any of my ministry friends...zing!) about what the church has done, is doing or where it might end up in the near future. During our conversation they complained about how leadership and Sr. Pastors (and support pastors for that matter) seem to have it backwards. That they put all the focus on other things rather than people. Buildings, productions, "Rock Concerts" (Elton Rourke), kicking the seniors to the curb (Contractor) and forget about the people. I found it very interesting that this was coming out of the mouths of people who all admitted they don't go to church anymore. If this is the perception of the regular non-church goer what have we done? Where did we mess up? When did church become about everything else other than God and people?
After painfully admitting that I was "one of those pastors" and the bashful, almost embarrassed, look they gave me when they found out, our conversation was over and I decided that I was going to come back to Starbucks again to see what else I might found out about this amazing group called "People". Have you heard about them?
