church and work

i hate church. there, i said it. if you've talked to me much in the last year, you've probably heard me say it a lot. well, it's true here, too.

i don't want to go just because it's good for me. like eating your lima beans. and i know that i'll like it more once i get used to it, once i make friends and get involved. but man, that initial part sucks.

looking back: when i went away to college, i started going to a small presbyterian church. i got a ride there every week by convincing my friend jason to take me, which worked fairly well the first semester. at the same time, i started going to a prayer meeting with some people who became really good friends. after coming back from Christmas break, i started going to their church, which is the one i went to for the next 4 years, and i LOVED it. it was exactly what i needed for that season of my life. unfortunately, after i went back to VA (against my will), that church fell apart.

now if i add just a few flavors of what i've learned in my classes and readings this week, one of the reasons it didn't work so well is that it wasn't missional. there were a LOT of missional people in the church, but the church itself wasn't really going anywhere or doing anything. there were certainly special events (i remember one saturday workshop on "prayer knocking", then we went out into the neighborhood across the street from the church and started knocking on doors and praying for people.)

but yeah, i want to be a part of a missional church (a church on a mission, going somewhere, with some purpose, that's outside themselves). as much as i loved the community and friends i had there, and the teaching was awesome, and the worship was good, and i loved my "house church"/small group, that's not enough for me anymore. i want to be a part of something specific, something outside myself and my comfort zone, something that is purposeful and attempts to change things, to bring Christ into new places. a better way of describing it can be found here.

just to clarify, 2 things:
1. that's scary. that's waay out of my comfort zone. i have no idea, really, what it means and looks like, especially for me on a personal level. i'm SURE it will mean doing things i don't like, and i'm SURE it won't be easy in many ways.
2. i have NOT said that all churches here suck, or none of them are missional, or none of the churches i've been to in my life have been missional. this IS saying that i'm thinking about it in new ways, and starting to evaluate my decision to be a part of a church in a different way. a way that really isn't clear. i can't just look at building, or a bulletin, or often even really know after attending a church service. (darn it! that would be so much easier!)

so here i am, at home, on sunday morning. i do think i'll go to a church tonite that i've heard about.

this is hard. meeting people is hard. trying to evaluate whether a church is missional after a few hours with them is hard!

at the same time, there are plenty of other issues i've had with "the church" in recent months. i hate communion as a pellet or a crumb, passed off as the generosity of God. i hate sermons, being preached to/at, with little to no accountability for the teaching being shared, or the opportunity/reason to work these things out in community, working out our salvation with fear and trembling. i hate that the body of believers represented in the new testament has been simplified to a 2 hour event on a sunday morning.

i've been reading a few accounts lately on how people found the church they're in, and i've been hearing stories of a few new friends here, how they found their churches. i'm jealous, really. it seems so easy for them. as i wrote in a personal reflection for a class' readings, i wonder if my heart is too hard and cynical to "fall in love with the people and the vision" of the church. it's a scary and real thought.

UGH.


ok, onto work...
so yesterday was my first day at my new starbucks. i'm pretty sure i worked with more people yesterday on my 8 hr shift than work at my home store, at all. the store does more than twice the business of my old store. it has twice the labor (my old store had, on average, 250 hours of labor a week, this one about 500). they have the warming ovens (that most stores in VB had, but not mine). they do NOT have the berry slushy drinks that most southern california stores have (so cal is a test market of sorts). they do not have most of the retail la promenade has. the cafe area is a little bit bigger (not too much more to mop), but a LOT more seating and tables. this store is about 7 years old, so most of the appliances are the same model la prom has (as opposed to newer stores having newer models of equipment).

unfortunately, they do NOT have a microwave in the back room. a big reason, i'm sure, is they don't have the room for it. so i brought in my frozen dinner to eat on my meal break, and didn't see a "partner food box" in the fridge to stick it in. i thought it was a little odd, but unless you're eating yogurt, cold food is gross, so why would you want to store any food in the fridge? so yeah, once i started my break, i figured it out. whoops. thankfully, they had a TON of breakfast sandwiches left over, so i ate one of those. i wanted to try one, anyway.

i was kind of stressed out, but also felt out of my league. i wasn't originally on the schedule to work at all last nite, but the shift who was scheduled couldn't work, so she asked me to work for her, so it was kind of an intro by fire. thankfully the manager, diana, was working, so she was able to set me up with keys and codes. one of the baristas working was also quick to show me around and answer my questions. but i definitely mastered the deer-in-the-headlights look, and i was also quick to laugh at myself.

example: i worked a couple shifts at a store that had a swinging door like this store has. the kind you can push open from both ways. but the hinge is on the other side. so i kept pushing on the door where the hinge is, rather than pushing on the side that actually swings around and opens. whoops.

so things are going fairly well, except that i don't really know what their order or timing is for cleaning up for the evening. so we were a little late getting out. except the safe. it's on a timer, and i wasn't quick enough for it, so i set off the alarm. i didn't realize i had set off the alarm, i thought it was just saying i would set off the alarm in X minutes, but i fixed the problem and the beeping stopped. so after we close and a cop comes up to the door, we wave her away, thinking she wants coffee. nope, she came to check out our alarm going off. so i explain its my first time working and i'm still getting used to it, and i explain what happened. so she was pretty nice about it, asked us some questions, and went on her way. whoops.

so right as i am letting the cop in, my phone rings, and it's courtney. i can't exactly talk to my roommate at the same time as this cop, so i shut it off. when we finally clock out for the evening and i'm walking home, i try to call her, but her phone is off. so i assume she was calling to say she's going to bed. when i get off the elevator on my floor in my building, i'm a little surprised to see a half awake courtney leaning against the wall. "i was hoping that was you," she said.

as it turns out, she was a little worried since i was late getting off, and she was calling to ask if i wanted a ride. the we both tried to call each other at the same time, and she thought my phone was off, too, so she decided to come drive around and look for me. but she forgot her key card, which gets her back into the parking garage, into the elevator from the parking garage, (in the front door of the building as well as the gate, should she had chosen to park on the street), and into our apt. so thinking my phone was off, she didn't want to leave and miss me and not be able to get in, or find me, or be able to call me. so yeah, it all worked out, i got home safely, courtney got in without her key, and all was good. hehe!