Bring XXX To The Front

I was on the road to a leadership retreat and was spending my time staring out the window for three hours singing along to whatever was playing on the radio.

While traveling I caught a glimpse of something on the side of the road. It was a worn down, beat-up, XXX adult store. My first thought was, "that place needs a new coat of paint," and then, "that would be an interesting church service project."

Could you imagine?

(Knock, knock, knock)
Owner: uh, hello?
Church: Hey, we're from (church name) and we saw your building could use a new coat of paint. If it's alright with you, we would like to paint it for you.

You can finish that little story how you want, that's how far my mind wandered.

Anyways, farther behind the XXX store was a bigger and newer looking store that had cool flags waving in the wind. It looked like a place of happiness and fun. I did not get a good glimpse of what kind of store it was, but it kind of like one of those party supply stores.

I think it is a great analogy. Bringing our XXX or pain or secrets or "dirt" closer to the road so that more people are likely to see it. I believe, once we get past that, the party can begin. That is when we looked past the XXX and see the party behind it.

I like it more than the other way around, with the party place in the front, because eventually someone is going to go out the back door of the party and see all the XXX, and once they learn all those things, they can't unlearn them.

So I like it with the XXX in the front. I like it because when we walk by it and people ask about it we can say, "Yes, we've been there and we gotten through it, and yes it was tough, but let me tell you, it made this place even more special. It's so real here, at this happy place, so clean, so open. Why? Because we've been there, we've been to the XXX store of our lives, we know about all those things, and we accept you, and forgive you. So let's party"

Does that make sense? I'm not literally talking about walking through a XXX store. What I mean is revealing your dirt your pain your struggles your insecurities your habits your emotions your scars your...XXX's. Your inner XXX store that you hide from everyone else in the world. It's hard to do, to disclose of such things but it is so rewarding in my opinion.  What's left to hide after we have nothing to hide from?

I'll try to find this place on Google Maps. It has not been successful so far. That way we know where to go when we want to do a service project.