A Neutral Place...

we have been talking with the guy that owns the local coffee shop (he goes to our church) about the possibility of opening up the shop on Thursday nights (it is not normally open in the evenings) for us to have a coffee house/open mic/concert type of a night. the coffee shop is right next to where all the bars are, and thursday nights are a big bar night around here and so we are hoping that we can make this work out and that it can serve as a very neutral environment for us to meet students that we would never meet or encounter in our building.

there are a few challenges with it though. namely, we don't want Art (the owner) to have to put in a bunch more hours working. so we are trying to come up with some ideas that will help us to be able to man the shop without him having to. one of our part time staff also works over there and so it seems like it would be possible for her to manage the shop while we are doing our event. but we still need more help, and i think that Art would be pretty picky about it being good quality people. so i am thinking about helping run things there on thursday nights as well. i am really drawn to the idea of a coffee shop anyways, and so i think that it would be an awesome opportunity for me to learn.

i am trying to figure out though if that would be the best way for me to be able to reach out to students during that time. and i think that it would work pretty well....we want for this whole idea and especially for what the time ends up looking like to be very student driven and to be very grass roots and i think that for me to be behind the counter most of the time working and making the behind the scenes stuff happen, that it would free up students to do the ministering and whatnot. and of course, i would still be able to interact with students and when things were slow, i would even be able to mingle some and do some more talking and reaching out and whatnot. i get really excited about doing that part of things, and so i think that is a pretty good indicator that it would be a good place for me.

the other big thing with this, is that i don't want to infringe on Art and on what he has going on at his shop and whatnot. but at the same time, it is such an awesome opportunity for us to do something that would be fairly outside the box and that would look a lot different than anything that we are doing right now. i just hope that Art is receptive to the idea and that this is something that builds a tie and not something that breaks down the connection and relationship that we have with him. i guess that we will know a lot more after tabitha talks with him tomorrow. i want this to work, but i know that ultimately i must trust God and leave it in His hands.