Running from KP as fast as he could

Now, as friendly as Kaw Prairie tries to be on the outside, and as passionate for Christ as we strive to be on the inside, there are occasionally those who just don’t seem very comfortable with our church at Prairie Star Parkway & K-7. And last Sunday afternoon, I met just that sort of dissatisfied individual first hand.

See, after tear-down was over and as Judy and her teams were preparing for the afternoon JAM and evening WILD trainings, I walked out to my car—tired and famished— to head home for lunch. (My lovely wife was coming over to the JAM training herself, and was bringing over a fresh sandwich for Judy. Her instructions to me, however, were to scrounge in the fridge at home for some edible leftovers. Hello?)

So as I circled our beloved roundabout to head east toward K7, wondering what sort of previously fresh foodstuff I might find when I got home, I noticed someone running eastbound down the inner curb of Prairie Star Parkway –away from our church—at top speed.

Or, more accurately, I noticed something. And not really running—more like crawling. It was a turtle. And for a small-legged little bugger, he really was hauling quite quickly.

I did a U-turn at the highway bridge and drove quickly back around the circle back to the road-rallying reptile. (There were a few large SUV’s barreling down the road, and I wanted to prevent a hard-shell road-kill if I could). As I parked the car on the left-lane (it’s not all that busy a Parkway at 1:30pm Sunday), I noticed the turtle had scooted up its legs and was in the “I’m not coming out” position. Not being a naturalist of any sort, I wasn’t at all motivated to actually touch the slimy guy. But I rummaged around in my trunk and found a piece of Tupperware Laura had been looking for for months. And aside from the dried lasagna that had calcified in an Italian corona along the walls, it was empty and usable.

So figuring I had to clean out the container anyway (I make it a point to wash out old lunch-containers in the same calendar quarter they’re used), I decided to try to use it to relocate the AWOL turtle. So after a few false starts, I rolled the turtle into the Tupperware, sealed the lid, and hoping I wouldn’t suffocate it, drove back to the south Kaw Prairie parking lot. The hard-shelled hurrier scampered eagerly toward the nearby retention pond, where I pre-baptized him as a Kaw Prairier—of sorts.

It got me thinking, though: I wonder how easy it is for more humanoid Kaw Prairiers to scamper away from our church as fearfully and rapidly as the little fellow I met on Sunday. After all, for an unchurched person nervous about ‘church people’ or for someone used to a formal worship style than ours, or a less inquisitive teaching approach than mine, Kaw Prairie might seem a bit threatening or overwhelming, kind of like my little car must have seen to the poor guy with the shell.

So I pray that this fall all of us will do the very best we can to welcome the folks we don’t know on Sundays warmly and gently. I also hope that we would each do our best to invite our new Kaw Prairie friends to come out of any shells they may be carrying—and into your ministry team or small group. Where, I hope, they’ll no longer feel like, well, a fish out of water!