The other day another member of our group and I had a meeting at his office. The purpose of the meeting was for me to get some background information to use for a paper I’m writing for one of this term’s classes, Advertising & Marketing Promotions.
You may be familiar with this member, his name is Sean Carter. He occasionally shows up to our meetings. But you know, I wouldn’t actually be able to verify how often he attends, because I haven’t, ahem, been to group myself in over a year, since I started Ottawa in January, 2008. Well, actually, it hasn’t been that long between visits, maybe only six months or so. But you get the idea.
Now, in all fairness to Sean, it isn’t really possible for him to be at the meetings when he isn’t physically in the state, so don’t think I’m singling him out alone for rebuke.
The interesting thing to come from that meeting was from a comment he made to me after we’d finished discussing my project.
We started talking about our small group, and he was mentioning how important each of us has been and is to the group, and how he feels that God has brought each one of us together for a specific purpose. We may not know exactly what the purpose is for now, but God’s placed us together for a reason (Deon has mentioned this too). Then, he mentioned that he (and he has told me this before) doesn’t know how some people don’t make the time to come to our meetings every week. Somehow, the topic of my attendance came up, and I said something to the effect of “Well, you know, I’m in school, and that comes first”.
In all fairness to me (since I was fair to Sean, I think it’s only fair that I am fair to myself), the term before my current one, I had to physically meet at the Chandler campus Wednesday nights, so there was no way I could attend our meetings.
But all the other times I’ve been away because I didn’t plan to make the meetings.
I get a break between terms, and sometimes my schedule otherwise happens to (at least in my mind) work out so I can make the meetings.
But what I’m finding, and this may not be as much of a revelation to some of you as it was to me, that if I actually decide to plan and prioritize my week so I have the time to make it to group, that I actually make it to group. What a concept.
But Sean’s keen insight was the following: we all have 168 hours in a week, and these meetings and what each of us gets from them is so important for building us up and keeping us on track, that he couldn’t really understand how someone wouldn’t want to make the time to be at our meetings each week.
Then he added something else. Some people might consider it a taunt.
In response to my (I think) somewhat justified response of “I have school”, he said,“Oh, so you’re just being a slacker.” To which I didn’t really have a response other than to agree. “Yeah, I guess sometimes I am.”
Slacker???
Hmmmm….slacker
Yes, he called me a slacker.
This really stuck with me. I know sometimes people will sometimes say things kiddingly, and not really mean it, but words mean things, and this statement made an impact.
And, I didn’t like being called a slacker.
Probably because he was right.
Now, I don’t know if his intension was to spur me into making major lifestyle changes and actually creating an Entourage scheduled appointment for my homework and everything else so that I could purposefully attend our meetings (then again, maybe he did. I never did ask him), but that was the net effect.
See how much impact we can have on each other’s lives? And in this respect, I think Sean as well as the rest of you are positive and Godly influences on my life.
Now, in fairness to everyone else, who may not be able to make group every week, I realize each of us has their own things going on as we live our lives, and sometimes we just can’t be at group. Prior commitments, family, school, not physically in the state, sick, or any number of other really good reasons.
But as for me, Sean got me thinking, and I am going to try and purposefully make our meetings if at all possible. God willing, unless I’m in school (physically), or have another really good reason, I’ll be at the meetings. And if I don’t, please show me mercy.
