The big one, not those other two
Everyone makes mistakes now and again. Mostly
you hope that your mistakes will be little and not cost money and not put people
out or hurt them in any way. But yeah, we all make mistakes.
Historically, our church has a number of rather
famous mistakes. The first of these was dubbed "Main's Folly." I wrote about
that one a
long time ago,
back when I was anonymous and had to change people's names. This was in the days when we were clearing the land
for the building. Michael Main had the brilliant idea of dumping a huge pile of
cedar and debris on top of a cactus patch before we burned it. His thinking was,
"why not get rid of the cactus while we're at it?" Unfortunately, the water
content of prickly pear cactus is so high that we couldn't get the thing to
burn. Nor could we retrieve the wood since it was, well, right in the middle of
a cactus patch.
It sat there for about 4 years until it finally
decayed enough to sink into the cactus patch. I suppose I could still find the
remnants of it if I was of a mind to try. In all fairness, I was right there with him and
went along with the plan enthusiastically. But I've been happy to allow his name
to be attached to the big rotting woodpile at the back of the property.
There have been other public and lasting
mistakes, some of them I mentioned in that previous piece.
The mistake I recently made might well go down
in our church's history as the most expensive and, frankly, dumbest mistake ever
made. Someone will have to work hard to beat it. I can tell you that.
Now this here story I'm about to unfold for you
started back in the year 2000.* Back then we had just put up our new building.
In those days I had a computer and the right software, so I generally laid out
and designed anything we printed. It seemed sort of natural for me to design the
sign, so I did. After it was done, the church had to approve it, of course. But
this was an easy bunch of folks. They had kind of a "whatever you think"
approach to stuff like this.
Note: I doubt anyone in our church has a
"whatever you think" approach to church signs now. Keep reading...
So I contacted the city to find out what the
sign regulations were. I created a sign in Microsoft Publisher at a scale of one
inch to the foot. I took my design to a sign company, and they put it on a sign.
This is what it looks like:
That's been our sign for 8 years now. But the
sign has a couple of problems.
First, it's getting a little worn. You
can see the blue vinyl border has torn away a bit at the top. And it's hard to
see in this picture, but the board has warped and now the sign has fallen out of
it's track and is resting at a slight angle. I keep thinking a gust of wind will
knock it down, but so far it hasn't.
Second, over the years we've noticed a
little problem with the wording on the sign. It clearly says, "Covenant Baptist
Church." And we are a Baptist church. But we're far from your average Baptist
church. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that we aren't like any other
Baptist church most people have ever experienced. Our theology is more
progressive. We use worship styles from many traditions. And our approach is
sort of quiet and unhurried. Contemplative, we like to say. I mean, this is a
Baptist church that has Franciscan retreats from time to time. We put our church
building back in the woods where you can't see it from the road, not caring a
whit that "church marketing" people said it was a bad idea. We've always felt
that those who need to find us generally do. And those that don't find us will
find someone else if they are serious about looking.
So what's the problem with that? No problem,
except people see our sign and show up looking for your average Baptist church.
We get a lot of one-time visitors. One or two took off running, apparently
fearing lightening might strike them. And for years I've wondered if people who
might appreciate and need our approach to church have driven past us because
they aren't about to visit a Baptist church.
A year or two ago, we started talking about
making a new sign that would more accurately describe the personality of our
community. So I designed a new sign. This time it had the same nurturing figure
I use at the top of this blog and said, "Covenant - a Contemplative Christian
Community." Our web address is still
CovenantBaptist.org, so it's not
like we're trying to fool anyone about being Baptist. We're just trying to
accurately describe our church for the benefit of those people who see the sign.
Here's where things started going wrong. I
distinctly remembered that the original sign was made of a standard 4' x 8'
piece of marine-quality plywood. So I made a graphic of the new sign that was 4"
x 8" and took it to the sign company. It cost $500 to make the new sign. I
remember how happy I was when I picked it up in my mini-van and drove it to the
church. But the moment I pulled into the parking lot I could see that the new
sign was too wide. It was WAY too wide to fit between the sign posts.
I was rather distraught, both because we
weren't going to have our sign and because I had just wasted $500 of the
church's money by not taking the time to measure the sign before I ordered it.
Yeah, I didn't measure it. Pretty dumb huh?
Yeah, well hang on. I get dumber.
On reflection, I remembered that the sign was
actually 4' x 6'. I remembered that I had been irritated that the sign ordinance
DIDN'T allow the use of a standard 4' x 8' piece of plywood, causing us to have
to cut the plywood. I called the sign company, and they kindly offered to remake
the sign for $250. They would cut two feet off the existing sign, peel of the
vinyl wording, and redo it.
About that time,
Paul Soupiset and family began attending our church. Paul is an
artist and a professional graphic designer. He looked at my new design and could
tell it was done by an amateur. He kindly agreed to redo the design of the new
sign. He made it to scale for a 4' by 6' sign. Paul's sign design was nicer,
having an interesting shape and a separate piece that was to hang below the main
sign. It was an extra $100 to get it cut, but here is Paul's sign, which I just
got back from the sign company on Wednesday:
Nice sign, huh? Oh yeah, it's a real nice sign.
Tim Heavin (our other minister) and I were thrilled when we went to pull out the
old sign and drop this one in the slots between the posts. I wish you could have
seen my face when we held up the sign and discovered that it was about a foot
short of fitting between the posts. A foot short.
To answer your question. No, I didn't measure
it. Why? Because I remembered so clearly that it was 4' x 6'. Never mind
that I had also remembered clearly that it was 4' by 8'. This is where I don't
really understand my own mind. I never even occurred to me that I should measure
it, just to make sure.
Last night at our weekly church meal, it was my
lot to endure the laughter and the kidding. People coming up and saying, "Hey
Gordon! They have these new things now. They're called TAPE MEASURES."
Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. I suppose there will
need to be another round of this on Sunday, when those who weren't there
Wednesday get a crack at me. I can't say I don't deserve it. The community does
have $850 sunk into a sign that seemed useless.
Sigh.
I'll tell you something nice, though. These
people love me. Not one person griped about the lost money or in any way was
mean about it. It was all good-natured laughing. And I could tell how much they
do love me, in spite of the fact that I'm always messing up things like
measurements and calendar dates and other things like that. I suppose the sign
will now be called, "Gordon's Folly." And that's okay, because I don't have to
get everything right for these people. The church pays me, but somehow I don't
feel like an employee. I feel like a man among dear friends and fellow pilgrims.
And I'm quite happy to be the quirky, flawed pastor of a quirky, flawed bunch of
seekers who love each other and are learning what it means to love God.
POSTSCRIPT:
There is good news to this story. Do you
remember Reggie Regan? Reggie, the
bat-house building, life-flight nurse and corrupter of ministers?
Reggie who
sold my belly-button lint on ebay for $200?
Reggie who gives the pastor a beer every single time I visit him and asks if I
want another? Reggie who introduced me to the joy of an authentic Cuban cigar?
Reggie who helped me take the transmission out of my
daughters car. Reggie who keeps bailing me
out of various problems? I haven't even told you the story of how I bought the
wrong hymnals on ebay and how Reggie is selling them on ebay so the church can
get the right hymnals without losing that much money.
Yeah, that Reggie. So Reggie came to the church
Wednesday and took the sign to his house. Apparently, he's rigged some kind of
wooden border thing that will make the sign fit between our poles. I haven't
seen it yet, but I don't even need to see it. It's Reggie. Reggie freakin Regan,
miracle worker, corrupter AND saver of wayward ministers. Reggie is handling it.
Reggie makes all things right.
Seriously - this guy is like the superhero of our
church
I'll post a picture of Reggie's handiwork when
the sign is finally up.
rlp
*Blatant rip-off from the Big Lebowski
