I remember when I was younger, dreaming about performing in big concert halls and under the big top. I dreamed of being a guest on the Tonight Show. I imagined having best selling videos of my live shows. One venue that was never part of my show business daydreams was the meat section of a grocery store, but for the last seven years, this has been a regular part of our annual schedule.
It started when the daughter of one of our worship leaders was a cashier at Tony's Foodland, in Naples, Maine. Somehow, this teen got the store manager and her mother to discuss the team singing Christmas carols for the store's annual Christmas open house. Alan, our worship team leader, asked if I'd consider performing between their sets, and a Christmas tradition was born.
Yes, it's a cramped space. Yes, the occasional shopper who is unaware of this yearly event gets awfully confused when they have to walk past a 13 year old girl juggling machetes in order to get the package of bacon they came in for, but it always a lot of fun. It amazes me how many folks from the community, young and old, come out to this party, but this year it was busier than ever. Hundreds of people came through the automatic doors of Tony's Thursday night to celebrate the season.
The worship team (BAWT) played Christmas carols. when they took breaks, Rose and I did our Gospel juggling show. We did two half hour sets of different material each time (in case there were repeat customers). My wife Sue was there enjoying the fellowship of the musicians and others from the church who came to support the event. It always amazes me that presenting the Christmas story in such a secular venue is always well received. Not to sound boastful, but I suppose the fact that we're having fun with it, doing it in an entertaining way, and not being pushy might just help people to respect what we're doing, whether they believe the same way about the holiday or not.
As for the rest of the event, there was free pizza, ice cream, egg nog for everybody. There were costumed characters including Rudolph, Frosty, Winnie the Pooh, elves, and, of course, Santa himself. Like a Dickensian scene from a twenty--first century Christmas Carol, everyone was having fun, striking up conversations with friends and strangers alike. I ran in to two of my former students and has a chance to catch up with them. I also met another man - a familiar face, but not someone I knew - who talked about his conversion to Jesus... while he was serving a 15 year sentence for murder. and that conversion is exactly the grace that we celebrate in the birth of Jesus Christ so long ago. Even if we celebrate in the meat aisle of Tony's Foodland!