Doin' church stuff

After years of barely being involved at church, I have started helping with one ongoing project - a 4-times-a-year evening "event". We do different things at these events, but it has evolved into having a common theme of being a "cafe" night.

Tonight we had an "art night", or "An Evening Celebrating God's Creativity". One of our worship bands played a few songs - and we projected images of original artwork (paintings, drawings, photos) from many people in our church during the worship time. The lights were out, only candles and a few strings of lights - it was very fun. Then we turned up the lights and invited everyone to make their own art - we had some clay tables with air-dry clay, some watercolor painting tables, some "crayon doodling" tables, and some lego tables (in case there were people who wanted something possibly less threatening to create with).

After an hour or so of making art, we invited people to hang and display their art in our "display grotto" area. We all enjoyed walking through, seeing the work of our collective hands.

And through it all we had coffee and snacks - good Peet's coffee with flavoring options, served by our own teenage "baristas" (instead of "get-your-own"). I have fun each time we do this trying to create some of the atmosphere of a coffee shop, using only the rectangular folding banquet tables and folding chairs available to us in the facility that we rent (plus accessories that I bring). We do not own or lease our own building - so when we do these evening events, we have to have the room completely cleaned out and everything put away before we leave for the night. Michael, who is one of the people I work with on these evenings, has called the whole thing a form of performance art - it's an amazing transformation to see the empty, old, school-cafeteria/auditorium room when we are done cleaning up.

It seemed like the people there were having a good time. I think the combination of being able to appreciate the diversity and excellence of art from our congregation, being able to make something with our own hands, having good music (different musicians from the band serenaded us throughout the evening), and plenty of time to drink coffee and talk was really enjoyable.

I was completely burnt out by the time the thing started. So many last minute crises of organization, mostly of my own making... Nothing that was a show-stopper - and there were plenty of little details that worked great. I am not an organized person - even though I spent a LOT of energy planning for this thing, there were many more things I should have planned better for. I learned a lot, and will hopefully be that much better prepared the next time. I am really exhausted, though, and my feet hurt. I dread cleaning out my van tomorrow morning.

Emotionally I usually struggle after doing something like this - I am plagued by the "what-if"'s, the "what did they think"'s, and the "if-only"'s. Tonight, I am only slightly in turmoil. I hope I can make it through tomorrow morning's clean-up of stuff and finishing up loose ends without a full-scale slide into those feelings. I think I will be fine, actually. Next time, we will do something a little simpler.