Chicago 2007

A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend an arts conference at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago (South Barrington, actually). Community Church makes it sound kind of small and quaint, but Willow Creek has 20,000 members or so and the last time I went to a leadership conference there, the President of the United States (WJC) showed-up to speak. It’s probably the second largest church in the US. I like to call it The Mothership.

Tony Colvin and I thought that attending the arts conference would be a good way for me to jump-start getting plugged back into the arts team at ACF. Besides, it would give me a few days away from the nightmare of living in the miserable mess of our home, while the new floors were being installed.

Our flight was on Wednesday at 10:00 am. Everyone was going to meet at the church (or Starbucks) and then carpool to the airport. Around 8:40 am on Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk at work, already started on a busy day of preparing to be gone for a week, when Tony called. “You know that we are leaving today, don’t you?” I froze. The flight was at Tuesday at 10:00 am.

“Tony, I can’t think on the phone. I’m going to hang-up and I’ll call you back when I know what I’m going to do.” I rang off. Stupid ADD. I can’t remember anything. I ran through a couple of different scenarios. I couldn’t make it home and back in time, so that was out. I could catch a later flight, but then I would have to rent my own car. Not a big deal, but I was worried about the availability of flights. Or, I could just go make my flight. After a couple of minutes of consideration, that’s exactly what I did. I stood-up, told the folks at work that I would see them next week, drove to the airport, and made my flight with nothing but the clothes on my back and my gym bag, which was all I had in my car.

My friends got a lot of mileage out of my predicament, but it was all in good fun. I couldn’t help but think that God was having a good laugh, as well. For weeks I had been complaining about the condition of our house and the fact that we had to live out of our suitcases in one room of the house while the floors were being replaced. I could imagine God saying, “Tired of living out of a suitcase? Here, how about no suitcase. Ha-ha!” It’s just like God to humble me and have a good laugh at the same time. He wasn’t finished with me, either.

We arrived in Chicago, rented a car, and drove to the hotel in South Barrington. When I walked into the hotel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were redoing their floors!

Look familiar?

Everything was just like at my house – the dust, the fumes, and the piles of displaced furniture. I hadn’t escaped from anything. Okay God, I get it. I get it! Very funny.

I went up to my room and emptied my gym bag on the bed. There wasn’t much that was useful. I could probably use the clean socks and tennis shoes. I had also grabbed a toothbrush and some toothpaste that I keep in my desk. My hair was cut really short, so there was no need for a hair brush or even product (besides, hotel-provided conditioner does in a pinch). There was no need to shave, so I didn’t need any of that gear, either. The hotel provided soap and shampoo, so all I really needed was deoderant. As for clothes, I was wearing my work khakis and loafers. Not much is more versatile than that. If I had to, I could have worn those for the rest of the week and just changed shirts. So I had a plan – get by with souvenir t-shirts until I could get to a real store for a change of clothes.

Just a little while later, we went into downtown Chicago and ate at Giordano’s Pizza. I love Chicago-style pizza. In fact, I love Giordano’s pizza so much that on a previous visit, I flew some back home with me. My carry-on was a box of pizza. I swear. Anyway, we had a great time. We celebrated J.R.’s birthday and stuffed ourselves silly. I also bought a Giordano’s shirt for the next day. It was pretty late by the time we headed back to the hotel, but we found a Walgreens and I ran inside to get some supplies. Niki noticed that they actually had some shirts for sale. There were only about a dozen or so and most of them were pretty bad. One of them was a sleeveless, shiny silver roller disco style shirt. I think another one had rainbows and unicorns on it. Who the hell buys this stuff? Anyway, one of the shirts wasn’t bad at all. It was just a red knit polo shirt. It had some black accents that looked nice, it was 100% cotton, and it was made by Jerzees, which is a name brand. The only questionable design feature was the black and white, checkered flag banding around the sleeves. Probably not something I would normally choose for myself, but I guess I’m a racer kind of guy, so I it could work. Besides, the shirt was only $4! That settled it.

The next day, I chose to wear my $4 Walgreens shirt, since I thought it looked better with my work pants and loafers. I took some shots from my friends for it, but a couple of them eventually admitted that the shirt actually looked alright. After the conference was over for the day, we rushed off to grab some quick dinner before heading back to the church for their regular Wednesday night worship. We went to Chili’s but the wait was too long. Then we went to T.G.I. Friday’s, but their wait was too long, too. Finally, we ended-up at a place called Steak ‘n Shake. Apparently, there is one of these in South Austin, but I had never been to one before. Imagine my horror upon discovering that the decor of the restaurant matched my $4 shirt! I looked like I worked for Steak ‘n Shake!

I was hoping that if the employees thought I was a manager from the corporate office, I would get better service. Not so much. I did get my order taken first, but my food took so long to come out that they gave it to me for free. Since we’re here, I guess I’ll do a quick review of Steak ‘n Shake: The vanilla malt was excellent, the “steak burger” was maybe the most bland and tasteless burger I have ever eaten (it tasted like…water?), the fries were good, but the service was poor.

After the Wednesday night service, my friend Phyllis (who had rented her own car) and another girl from our group took me to Target for some clothes. My souvenir shirt plan just wasn’t working. Obviously, an arts conference is attended by artists. Have you ever seen how artists dress? It might as well have been called an “artist and hipsters” conference, except that the word hip isn’t hip anymore and they would have to call it something else. I don’t know what that would be because I’m old and I’m not privy to the new word for hip. I won’t know it until that word has gone out of fashion, so I still have to say hip. Anyway, there were eleventy-thousand artists at this conference and they all had cool hair, and cool glasses designed by architects, and cool jeans, and cool flip-flops, and of course, cool chi teas and coffees, which they got from the cool Starbucks knock-off inside the church. I was in over my head. I was still stuck in my corporate drone-wear with a shirt from Walgreen’s. Besides, I’m just not cool. I needed help.

So, we hit Target and I put together what I call my Youth Pastor Kit: – a dark brown and blue pullover shirt that looks exactly like one that I wore back in 1974, flared jeans, and some stylish, square-toed leather shoes. I was a pukka shell necklace and feathered haircut away from looking like David Cassidy. I felt ridiculous, but my friends said the clothes looked good and maybe the other attendees wouldn’t think I was a narc.

Afterwards, Phyllis wanted to do some exploring, so we drove to a nearby little town called Elgin. It seemed like a sleepy little place – the kind with old, craftsman-style homes and a historical district downtown. By the time we got there, it seemed the town had shut-down for the night, but we drove around and looked at the interesting old homes and talked about what it would be like to live in a small town. Then we turned a corner and it was like somebody had popped a flashbulb in my face. Right in the middle of this quiet, dark little town was a huge casino! I had a assumed that the town was asleep, but I think what was really happening was that the casino was sapping all the power from the rest of the town. This thing was lit up like a jukebox.

From the front, it looked like a regular casino, but it was really a riverboat casino. It never sails, so I don’t know if there is some historical value to that riverboat, or if it just a way to sail through one of those legal loopholes we have in this country that says gambling is bad everywhere except for two cities, Indian reservations, and on barges where there is a good chance a nautical tragedy will drown all of the sinners at once. Whatever. We were there – so we went in. And that was how less than two hours after walking out of a Wednesday night worship service, I found myself drinking a beer in a riverboat casino.

It was actually a pretty nice casino. It was nicer than the cruise ship casinos I have seen and it was even better than many of the casinos I have seen in Vegas. Also, it was late on a Wednesday night, so there wasn’t a crowd (though it was far from empty). Now, I could make a big tall tale out of this, but the truth is, I’m not much of a gambler. If circumstances had been a little different, I might have sat at a table for a little while, just to say I had done it. But, sitting at a Blackjack table in my $4 shirt and a bummed beer (thanks, Phyllis!), while I gambled off of a credit card, sounded to me like a Really Bad Idea. So, we each had a beer, Phyllis lost some money on the slots, and we called it a night.

The next evening was a real misadventure. The plan was to go downtown and check-out some Blues. But there were so many of us that it would have taken two cars and nobody wanted to take their car anyway, because parking in downtown Chicago is on the order of $20/hr. So, we took the train. There really isn’t a good way to tart-up this story, so I’m just going to spill it out and get it over with. First of all, dinner ran very late. I don’t know why, because we ate at a Chili’s-style restaurant that should have taken no more than an hour, but somehow it took over two. Then we took the train – the miserably slow train. Halfway through the trip downtown, the conductor announced that one of the tracks is down, so they would have to share tracks with another train. The miserably slow train had to stop and wait for that train to pass, before we could proceed. That added another 20 minutes to the trip. All told, I think we were on the train for at least an hour. It seemed like more, trust me. At one point, as my eyes wandered over the PSA posters and wireless phone ads for the eleventy-millionth time, it occurred to me that these were the same trains that were in Risky Business. I was excited for about ten seconds, but then, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t figure-out a way to make that interesting. So, I went back to being bored to death.

Finally, we arrived downtown, but with only had a vague sense of where we needed to go. This part wasn’t too bad for me. I love walking around downtown in big cities at night. Yes, I am being that specific on pupose. I have done it in cities here and abroad, and I just love it. But there wasn’t too much time to just enjoy it, because we were on a mission. A local fella noticed we looked lost and was nice enough to actually walk us to a bar with a Blues band. We arrived just in time for last call and the last two songs of the night. It was a great band, but by that time, it just didn’t seem to me like much of a payoff. There were rumors of another Blues bar that stayed open late, but we were exhausted and a maybe a little discouraged, so we packed it in and steeled ourselves for the long train ride back. It was awful.

I haven’t said much about the conference itself, but that’s only because it doesn’t lend itself to good storytelling. It’s just like most conferences – there are general sessions and break-out sessions. The general sessions began with music and worship, then followed with teaching. The general sessions were really like little church services, except with teaching that focused on the arts. I really enjoy immersive experiences like these. They help me get focused. I’m also inspired just by being around other artistic people and seeing excellent art used for the church. The conference was also a great way for me to hang-out with my old friends that I used to serve with. The idea was that it would create a platform or bridge, from which I could reenter and serve within the arts team at ACF. I still don’t know if that will come to fruition, but I’m pressing-on regardless. Tomorrow, I will go to a training class to learn how to use the new video gear that ACF will be using.

Here is a blog with clips, comments, resources, and background stuff on the 2007 WCA arts conference. Don Miller and the Urban Poets were two of my favorite things about the conference. In fact, it was reading Don Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz earlier this year, that was one of the things that got me back to ACF. In that light, it was particularly awesome to hear him speak at the conference.

2007 WCA Arts Conference Blog

Please pin, tweet, and share! Most importantly, let me know what you think in the comments below.