July 23

More about Saturday's wedding...

A great time was had by ALL at Bobby and Michelle's wedding (can I mention first names?). "The Club" was gorgeous with the sun setting over downtown, and the glow from Vulcan (not the Paul Allen company) towering above the nearby trees. Bobby showed a great deal of class in his selection of a best man, for even though he has an unlimited number of friends from high-school wrestling, and college fraternity activities... he chose his father as best man. Someone who truly has "been there for him" at every turn. I was sincerely impressed by this selection, and I applaud Bobby for choosing my brother to stand with him at the alter. My advice to him was: Don't Forget Your DREAMS, and don't forget the dreams of your wife. Incorporate those dreams into your life together, and work bit by bit to achieve those dreams TOGETHER. And I said, "Congratulations" to the groom, and "Best Wishes" to the bride - they were very happy, and are newly on the road to a long and happy marriage (the bride's parents have been married for 30+ years, and the groom's parents have been married for 30 years exactly).

Yesterday's phone call...
I got a phone call from someone at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle asking about the "Singles Connection / Resource Roundtable" group at Emmanuel Episcopal church. Yes, I'm one of the organizers. I talked about the five areas of opportunity (i.e. 'needs') for single people: Friendship, Social Activities, Education, Leadership opportunities, and Service opportunities. Add this to the 'safe place to BE SINGLE', 'Romance Free Zone', 'Sabbatical from Relationships', and you start to get to a real community of single people where you can network with other people, make new friends, learn about what's going on in the area for singles, and "get out there" to have a good time. St. Marks is planning a wine-tasting party... my first question was: "is this group inward looking for the St. Mark's singles, or outward looking, trying to 'build community' among the singles (48% of the adult population) in Seattle?" Organized churches tend to look for 'young couples and families', and don't realize that by doing so they are under serving a large population right under their noses. The answer I got on 'inward vs. outward' was essentially they're in a forming stage, and are therefore looking inward at the moment, but want to incorporate the best ideas, and consider looking outward, and building community in the future. MY thinking is that the only way they're going to build new communities of people (or new 'congregations') is to look outward, and serve the larger community, but to do so without trying to force evangelism down people's throats. I suspect that people attending their 9:30pm Sunday night Compline service are a good demographic from which they could recruit. I asked the caller if they had ever *attended* the 9:30pm service, and the answer was "no". I advised the person to go to that service THIS WEEK and to wear their virtual 'singles group organizer' hat - visualize the service through the eyes of a single adult (>90% of their late-night audience) and to realize that most of these people are "Looking For More" in their lives - looking for 'something more' spiritually, socially, and wanting to have a positive impact on the world.

The call ended with me giving my personal email address, and offering to attend any organizations meeting they might have. It sounds like St. Mark's - a rather large, well funded, institution is ready to dip their toe into the world of singles community building! I had warm thoughts about the 'possibilities' all evening...