Whew! Busy week around here. Mostly busy with the right stuff, but still not 100%. Something happened a couple days ago that pleased me, though. I worked at the coffee shop early in the morning, but business was slow and we were overstaffed, so I got off work early. I had another meeting scheduled for later in the morning, so I just hung out at a table outside and read. I had my Bible out, and was reading a book by Thomas Merton. I was there for about 45 minutes. During that time frame I had something like six or seven decent conversations with different people - all of them were regular customers that I have gotten to know by name since I've worked there. In almost every case, they asked what I was reading and we were able to talk about life.

Now, let me just say that I suck at evangelism (and wouldn't you know it, none of them "got saved" while we were talking). Also for the record, I didn't have my Bible and the other book out there so that I could be noticed. But because of the relational connection I've already had with these folks, I was able to talk to them openly and freely.

I'm pretty happy about that situation because it somehow proved the value of getting the job at the coffee shop in the first place. Sure I could be making much better money somewhere else, but I've been able to get to know dozens of people - maybe not enough to know the names of their kids or what their favorite flavors of ice cream are, but enough to be able to trigger a decent conversation when the opportunity presents itself. This is a big deal for me, in part because I suck at evangelism (or at least what passes for it). Hopefully I'm increasingly in a position to take customers and make friends out of them.