Uncross your arms.

Today at RPC we started doing something a little different. We’re re-vamping our host team, and today we very intentionally welcomed people into our worship center. The welcome even started before they entered our doors.

We do this to “uncross their arms.” People come to church with arms crossed…with their guard up. The job of the host team is to uncross their arms, so they can relax and encounter God.

Well today they did it. 6 people changed the whole dynamic of the service, just by being friendly. I hate to call it customer service, but that’s what it is. We work for God, and if we can make our guests feel comfortable enough to take Him in on Sundays, then we’ve done our job.

I must confess I am so proud of these men and women who changed our vibe today, for the better.

PS. If you’re reading this and you attend RPC, the host team is an easy way to get involved with what we do on Sundays. Let me know and I’ll get you plugged in.

i mess up a lot

Like, little things that are just annoying enough to tick you off. Like I’ll schedule a practice on the wrong night, or I’ll wait until the last minute to get something done and my workers will call me on it, or maybe I’m just messy b/c we don’t have a lot of space. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t do well. I was having one of those mornings where I just feel like I suck at life. One of my workers was texting me about how messy things are. One informed me that I had published a date wrong.

But then I got just a few, small words of encouragement, and it made me feel so much better. They said, “I don’t know anyone who could do the job you do, and handle the people you handle. As well as you do. Seriously you are awesome.”

So, lets talk about encouragement. Do you remember to encourage people that work for you, as well as people that lead you? ‘Cause sometimes, just saying something like that can really really help them more than you’d ever know.

In fact, I think that you probably had someone pop into your head during this post, someone that you know you need to say some nice words to. So go do it RIGHT NOW. Shoot them an e-mail, or call them, or just go give them a hug (a baptist, a-frame hug, of course).

You just might find that the whole encouragement thing works 2 ways.

Bite Back

I know I’ve been whoring this blog out a lot lately, but darn it I don’t care. You read it and this is a worthwhile cause, so get mad and leave if you want to, or give 10 dollars to save some kids in Africa.

Basically there are a bunch of kids dying because they can’t afford mosquito nets and no one can educate them about malaria. Instead of pledging $xx.xx for the rest of your life, you can give this one time gift of 10 bucks and help supply some mosquito nets. Simple as that.

I found out about it through BooMama. So go and do something good for the world. Help a kid.