Gasparilla Sucks!
...At least it did this year. It was cancelled early because of a tornado warning. We got stranded outside, in the torrential rain, with our three kids for 2 hours, with 8,000 of our closest friends, all waiting for the same 3 shuttle buses. Should have been home by 5:30 but rolled in at 8:30 instead, and that's only part of the story...
Tampa's annual Pirate Festival kicked off this weekend with the kids' parade. All that really means is that the drunken bash is next weekend - this one was supposed to safe for your family. Our purpose in being there was not pure recreation. Had it been, I would be even more salty about the outcome. We were there with a team from our just-getting-started church, giving away candy necklaces attached to connect cards. This kind of idea is classic servant evangelism but the experience has left me questioning quite a bit.
Here's the scene: Me, my 7-months-pregnant wife, and all three of our boys riding along on one stroller. Forget the pirates, we were a parade of our own! To get to the festival we parked on the street in downtown Tampa and all rode together on a shuttle bus to the parade route. We hit the streets with about 4,000 cards and candies. My family had about 400 to give away as our part. Most of the people were already settling into their spots along the route, waiting for the parade to begin. That means the vast majority of folks had their backs turned to us. That wasn't a problem for the people flying solo - they just mingled into the crowd and gave away their candies super-fast. But us... we were stuck trying to find a spot along the street and get the attention of the foot traffic. There were already people out there handing out worthless crap like flyers and ads for cell phones (no kidding!) so that's who we looked like when approaching people with "free stuff." We decided that we looked a little more "official" by staying in one place and reaching out to people as they came past. It worked, I guess. I went through about 250 pieces in a couple minutes, but I was kind of bummed about the whole thing.
The guy that organized it did a great job and the candy necklaces were a great choice for the occasion. The people that took them seemed to enjoy it. I saw a lot of people eating the candy and saw literally only one of our connect cards being trampled under foot. Maybe everyone was just very conscientious with their trash, I don't know. My problem with it was that it didn't ever feel like evangelism. I'm pretty experienced with servant evangelism by now. I've done a lot of it and I've been there to lead others who are doing it for the first time. There is always an "is this making any difference...?" element to it, but on every prior occasion, when we got together afterwards, at least one person had a story that made us all feel like we were about our Father's business. This time, speaking only for myself, I never felt it. This felt like a pretty good marketing idea. I'm not even objecting to the notion of a church out marketing itself (although some people certainly will). I just don't care about marketing anymore.
All evangelism is good evangelism. While at the parade a very somber looking group of people wearing "God HATES sin!" T-Shirts came up to me and, without a word, handed me a Gospel tract called "The Little Red Book." In it, I learned through religious clipart that I was dying of a terrible disease called sin and only Jesus... Thank God for those people! I'm glad I wasn't one of them, but I really am thankful for them. I smiled and gave the girl candy. I know what we did was "good," but I'm questioning my own dissatisfaction with it all. What would I have rather done to be in on this event and "let my light so shine before men that they see my good deeds and praise my Father in Heaven?"
Our experience generated a few ideas:
- Give away ponchos / umbrellas. The weather was predicted. We knew it was coming enough to bring 4 ponchos for ourselves and an umbrella, why not plan ahead a little further and have ponchos to give away to everyone? Expensive, I know but not so much more than candy and professionally printed cards that it couldn't be done. When the heavy rain started we had two ponchos on our two bigger boys and noticed a family in front of us with two kids and no protection from the elements. We gave them our other two ponchos and just shielded our little guy with our bodies. How would we have felt if we were watching our kids shiver, soaked to the bone and a stranger came up and offered us free protection from the rain? Blessed!
- Pick up trash. There was garbage everywhere and I know someone was going to have clean all that up. What a blessing it would have been to see a little army of people out there helping you out. I saw an entire bag of garbage just left in the street as we were leaving. I picked it up and dropped it into the trash can (a mere 3 paces away). After I did, I noticed a guy notice me. A few yards further, he picked up a couple cans on the ground and carried them to the next trash bin.
- Go around saying "Thank you," to all the police and vendors that came out to help / put on the event. My wife mentioned how good her funnel cake was to the vendor and was told, "We never get compliments. We get a lot of complaints, but never any compliments." I thanked a Policeman for standing in the storm and helping to maintain order at the 8,000-man bus stop and he looked genuinely shocked that someone had noticed his service instead of just expecting it.
Scott Bane
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Reader Comments (12)
Seems like you may have been listening to the Holy Spirit...for the family with no poncho, the vendor and the officer...clearly they were blessed, that seem pretty good...
That's how I felt about our tape give-away. I'm not real gung-ho about doing anything like that again. I want to be who I am sharing who Christ is in me. I just don't know how to do that from where I'm at right now. If that made sense to anyone, you've had a lot more caffeine and sleep than me.
Lisa,
That made perfect sense to me...however, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think there is definitely a place for what I call regular "project" serving. The main reason is so that the "church," that is, the people are regularly on the front lines meeting people. In that environment God can use us. In Scott's example he was used in at least three ways. The project didn't feel that great, but God touched some people. However, the real goal would be to living out the life of God 24-7 and noticing what God is doing in our neighborhoods, workplaces and where we live our lives on a regular basis.
I love the discussion that is forming. Charlie is right - had it not been for the project, we would not have been placed into the circumstances that really did evoke the feelings of being used by God. I cannot overlook the other distinction that this is one project of more than 2 years of doing stuff like this. A lot of what you experienced, Lisa, is the understandable results of your very first project.
I still see the value of the projects too. Here's what I'm thinking though: If we would have looked at the calendar back in November and said, "Hey Gasparilla is coming up in January. Let's start to pray and ask the Holy Spirit what He thinks we can do to bring the kingdom to those people," would we have still come up with candy necklaces and connect cards? Maybe. I'm not sure.
I think their t-shirts said, "Jesus HATES sin" which is somehow worse to me. Also, don't forget the vender who shouted out, "Hey McGruff take a bite out of this!" when the McGruff the Crime Dog float went by. That parade was just awesome all around!
It does make sense, I understand why you feel the way you do. Thankfully God is bigger than all this, and so your day, while miserable circumstances, still went according to His plan. You never know how far those contact cards will reach, and who will come to your church because of them. The lives that could be affected and changed forever might not have been affected by acts of service, we know so many are searching. That said, it sounds like a wonderful learning experience for you and like you will be doing things differently next time. No reason to be bummed!
Your heart was in the right place. I can see where you wanted the people to see Him rather than join your church. To someone who might be on the receiving end, it could look as though you were trying to get them to join your church. One thing, you didn't take up there time and talk to them about how your church is the place for them, you gave a gift and left it at that! Pretty neat. I think it was a seed and a start for someone or lots of someones! You got them to think if even for a second! Then the ones that maybe needed a little more you were there and answered! That was the part of this that would have touched me! It wasn't planned, you were just living life and in the moment, you did the right thing! Don't chalk it to a loss or to a feeling, put it on doing the right thing at the right time! The candy necklace idea was cool, too bad it really stunk!!
It's Lori up here in freezing cold Indiana and while reading your not-so-wonderful experience brought a few chuckles again, your last statement is so very true. We are to attract others to Christ not our church. Golly, I am not saying church isn't important, because it is for discipling, but to go out with the get-them-to-our-church attitude, well, you just stated it well. Steve and I have been a part of many "busts", but in the midst of stinky circumstances, God still worked....even though everything seemed in complete chaos.
As always, living and learning.....
Lori
Great post. I feel like there will be such a positive outcome from this. Your acts of kindness were witnessed by so many people. Great idea to use the candy necklaces as a tool. You and Sheryl are doing such a great work.
Thank you for the comments and encouragement. I have the same feelings that this will be fruitful. My thing is that I don't want to settle for doing things that are "good" instead of "bad." I am looking for the transcendent. Like Jesus saying, "If you are struck on your cheek, offer your other cheek also." The "bad" thing to do would be to hit back. The "good" thing to do is to not hit back. Jesus offers the transcendent thing - let your other cheek get struck also. It's an ongoing search with plenty of misfires along the way, I'm sure.
So true, being mediocre is not our calling.
I think you made some great points. I never sensed servant evangelism as being a form of church marketing. It was always a tool or resource to get in position to share the "God" stories in our life. Since I have been immersed in the workplace, I have seen se work in the context that it helps put motion to the notion. The notion is that God loves them. It's funny how we get so focused on one form or another to do all the stuff that God is intending. Charlie said, "living out the life of God 24-7" Not just on Saturday's or Sunday's! My premise is more Pastor's need to be immersed into the everyday lives of people--not just on special occasions. Lastly, certainly God is bigger than marketing schemes to get people to come to our church--through genuine acts of kindness will people discover that what we have is something they want to experience as well--but never is the attempt to get them to be like us or come to our church. That would suck--if everyone was like me, lol.