In case you haven’t heard me say it before, raising your own support for ministry is difficult, especially when you’re a goober like me. After almost a year of support raising and several months of stasis, we decided along with the administration at the ministry that it was time to start working at the ministry in hopes that we could A) actually get some ministry done, and 2) show some evidence of ministry to those I was soliciting for support. It was really a trial by fire scenario since the first event we had on the calendar was a music festival hosting 17 bands and expecting attendance in the tens of thousands.
Those were the moments I really began to question the sanity of the directors of the ministry. I was 23 years old with no real experience in the field and I was entrusted with the whole shebang. I started reading the riders sent by the bands and festival organizers. I started having meetings with agents and underwriters and promoters and venue representatives. I always thought I’d be pretty good at managing logistics, but the number of factors involved in an undertaking like this was pretty overwhelming. During our venue search, I was fortunate enough to scout a location at a NASCAR track where we were shuttled around the facilities in a Chevy minivan. They then took us down the drag strip and around the oval. It was a little slower than a NASCAR, but a memorable experience regardless driving around the grounds. We were unable to come to terms and finally settled on a different venue.
As the event drew closer I started finalizing details such as volunteer staff, communications, food and vending, and restroom facilities. I fought back and forth with the promoter (who is the guy who takes all the financial risk in something like this) about the smallest little details trying to find a balance between what the artists riders required and what he was willing to provide making phone calls and emails back and forth and back and forth. The date moved closer and my work days stretched later into the evening and finally the day of the show arrived.
I arrived on site at 4 A.M. to meet the truck drivers and first of the festival crew to begin setup. At 6 A.M. the first of our ministry staff and volunteers began to trickle in and I had the first of 400 meetings that day. By 8 A.M. people were lining up for the 10 A.M. start time and the last of the volunteers and festival staff arrived and quickly dispersed to perform their duties. I wore a radio on one shoulder tuned to the frequency of the festival staff (approx 50 workers) and another radio on the other shoulder tuned to a different frequency for the volunteer staff (approx 200). I was the go between for both teams and constantly bombarded with radio traffic and requests.
At 10 A.M. the first band stepped on stage and we were in full swing. At 10:30 we ran out of toilet paper because the promoter decided to cut my order of porta-johns from 30 units to 5. Fortunately our HR manager saved my life through exceptional foresight by having a stock pile of TP in her vehicle for just such occasion. Bands were constantly on and off between the two stages we had set up and I was on the move the entire day. I didn’t get to stop once and listen to any of the music; in fact, it was mostly just frustrating background noise for me as I tried to manage all the chaos of the day. Lunch came and went. Dinner came and went. I grabbed a snack here and there to keep me from collapsing in the 100+ heat only magnified by the asphalt parking lot we hosted the event on. Hannah and the boys came to visit and were able to sit in the green room and visit with a few of the artists.
Finally at around 10:00 PM the final band finished their set and the mad rush for tear down began. As chaotic as setup had been, tear down was worse since we were now dealing with several thousand onlookers who wanted to be involved at any cost. When it was all said and done I was the last one to leave the venue at 3:30 AM the next day, 23 ½ hrs from when I arrived.
In the aftermath, I received the greatest compliment I could have asked for when the president of the company who produced the festival called me to say that the festival staff told him that our festival was the best organized and smoothest operating one they had been a part of in 3 years. I was glad to hear that someone thought it went well because every time I turned a corner that day I ran into another unforeseen problem that needed attention. Without question I had a wonderful support staff at the ministry and an exceptional volunteer crew to thank for making me look good.
We hosted several other events over the next few months including an extreme sports demonstration that was supposed to feature Stephen Baldwin as the guest speaker. Unfortunately we were unable to raise the $50,000 fee for the event. We finally asked what the event would cost without Stevie B and were told that the price was then $5,000, which we could manage. I’m not one to judge, but man I wish I got $45,000 every time I gave my testimony.
There was a lot more going on in our life at the time aside from the ministry. Hannah was working at a restaurant in order to supplement our ministry income, we were helping at our local church with events, we were traveling for more support raising trips, the twins were regressing back to the level of a 6 month old, Caleb was pooping in the bottom drawer of his dresser… Our life was chaotic, but somehow we look back on it all with very fond memories.
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