Setting up ShareFest

Sharefest is in a few weeks. There are something like 300 churches in Boulder are doing it this year. (Does that sound right? I will keep it until corrected.) So our church, instead of working at a local school, is adopting homes in the neighborhood around us.

People had volunteered a few homes. So a few weeks, i went with Brian, our Associate Pastor, to meet these home owners and explained ShareFest and let them know someone referenced them. We told them someone would call them.

It was sorta old school for me. Like the days as a young pk when I would be riding with my dad and he would say, "I need to go visit this person. You can stay in the car or come with me". So I was forced into door-to-door evangelism unless I was willing to stay in the hot car with the windows rolled down.

Actually it was a good to see the master at work.

But those days are gone. Door-to-door evangelism probably rose out of the days of door-to-door salesmen and it was more normal. Like who is at home and unless you are a JW or a Mormon, we learned it was culturally irreverent to go door-to-door. If you are like me, you pretend no one's home when the JW lady comes through the neighborhood.

But Brian and I had fun. Most people were not home that day but we did talk to a couple of sweet older ladies. The response was usually, "well maybe I do have some yard work someone could help with. How much will it cost me?" "Oh, it's free." we would reply. "Well in that case my house does need painting."

Some of the folks were not home that day. (Sadly, one man had died and the person recommending him didn't know that.) So today we went back again to see if more were at home.

I have to say the lady we talked with today was the saddest case. Her front lawn was a junkyard. We realized right away why her next-door neighbor recommended her. Brian was real gracious. "Are you sure you don't have anything else you need us to do like take away some stuff or paint..." She showed us her garden that she needed help with and we walked by her car. From floorboard to ceiling in the passenger seat and all in the back was full of junk and rotting food. No lie. We saw her back porch and from floor to ceiling it was loaded with junk. We asked if she needed help with that and she said "no" she needed to handle that.

Oh man... we just decided that we would appoint a very firm but nice lady in our church to be project manager at her house. Hopefully someone can help her.