Hard-won advice from a reluctant event organizer and project manager

When I was in middle school, I got the itch to organize events. No, that's inaccurate. I realized the need for organization, so I did it. There wasn't really an itch, just a desire to get to the end goal and no bridges provided to it. The point is, I got started in event creation and project management shortly after I hit the double digits, so I have a little bit of experience in it.

I don't know how to make things successful in terms of large numbers, so if you're reading this for that info you should just go Google it and find a blog or article written by someone with huge events listed under their credentials. Large numbers aren't really my thing, although it may have been early on. What I've learned, instead, is that I want people who want to be part of the experience.

Here's how I got to this place with my events and projects, and some lessons I've learned the hard way that I'd like to impart to you as a shortcut past frustration, disillusionment, and reorientation. Don't worry - you can still go through those feelings in other areas of your life.

I used to invite everyone. Then I realized if the event was for everyone it wouldn't be effective. It would be too general. It would be like seeing a family doctor to remove your gallbladder: She could do some of it, but probably wouldn't go deep and precise enough to ensure maximum impact of the procedure. So I started creating target demographics. If others came from outside those demographics, that was fine; however, I needed to accept I couldn't focus on all people and all their needs and still make something important happen. This allowed me to weigh the feedback I received. For example, if I created a project for high school students and a middle schooler said it wasn't meeting them where they were at, I was able to adjust the value of that critique as it applied to my intention.

I used to count on people to attend who said they would. Then I learned that people love ideas in theory but often beg off when reality sets in. They have to figure out logistics, they have to sacrifice their time, they may have to get uncomfortable. This was one of my key takeaways from Jesus' parable of the banquet: Invite them, but plan for a significant fraction to not follow through. Experience and context of the event in question will allow you to figure out an estimate for yourself, but I tend to use a 25-40% follow-through rate as a rule of thumb for my projects. The more sacrifice/discomfort required for participation, the lower the follow-through rate.

I used to assume I knew what people wanted. Then I started listening to attendees to help me to expand the vision - and often cut off parts of my own. That was humbling but critical, and, like with any kind of good pruning, it led to new growth. I also found out the attendees didn't always know what they wanted, so we discovered it together.

I used to work alone. Then I figured out that I am lacking in a lot of areas. A lot. It's that whole body analogy the Apostle Paul writes about, but this became even more real when I first started attending film festivals, where I witnessed films that were written, directed, and edited by one person. There were so many parts of these films that went too long or in a weird direction, characters who weren't developed enough or had an unnatural amount of focus on them, and other errors or poor decisions that could have been caught by having someone else in just one of those three leadership roles. So I've brought on team members, especially ones who were different from me and could see things and do things I could not.

I used to keep going. I still do. I make strategic plans that get rewritten countless times, but the planning gives me a framework for future forecasts and goal-setting. I fail a lot, I recalibrate a lot, and I am constantly educated by the brutality of experience. I have had to kill off projects I really liked because the potential or people or my own longterm interest just wasn't there. It's not easy. It's not always fun. But I love it because when something truly works I get see the goal reached: The people who want to participate receiving something valuable to them, being part of something that matters to them.

I wish you the best as you create and manage your projects to your own goals, and then allow them to evolve to meet others' needs. I beg of you: Don't worry so much about others' external standards of numbers or volume - define your standards and your goals, then work toward those for real impact.

Where Are My Eagle Wings?

I'm working hard on CAST #2: Restoration, an event for women focusing on both brokenness & God's restorative vision for creation. My personal drama is this: I'm currently in a complicated relationship with restoration. 

As I've previously written, I recently went through a confusingly dry season of waiting & clinging.  It's been jet-black darkness at countless times, with equally innumerable false-starts of returning to daylight.

All the while, I've been holding to the hope-inflating notion that when I reach daylight there will be a tangible sense of restoration. I'm not expecting much, just the emotional equivalent of a homecoming parade. And maybe some fireworks, the kind that create shimmering hearts inside of circles and change colors.

But now that I appear to be standing in the sunshine again - grief, health issues, sleep deprivation, and family concerns relatively resolved - I still feel residual numbness. And not that tingly-numbness that your foot does to say, "Okay, okay, I'm waking up!"

Just basic, anticlimactic numbness. 

My counseling background keeps tapping me on the shoulder with, "Well, you know, you've been through some trauma recently," and, "Hey, grief takes many forms." All that is true, and I have been giving myself heaping shovelfuls of grace daily.

But shouldn't there be some kind of surge of joy upon reentry into the land of the living? Couldn't there at least be a small float or one marching band?

I waited on the Lord, Isaiah, so where are the eagle wings and superhuman running capabilities you talked about in Chapter 40, verse 31?

Then again...could it be that I am mixing up restoration with resolution? Because, come to think of it, I know a lot of folks who have seen an end to the storms in their lives, but still no rainbow.

If that is the case, how do we summon the rainbow?

Until the answer comes, you can find me sitting in gratitude in this new sunlight. Because, irrespective of the numbness, I am deeply grateful to be out of that darkness. And so I will choose to praise even when I don't feel it.

("Joy" by Page CXVI)

Casting CAST

The general consensus was that no one's husband thought they should be there.

With a theme like "Busyness", it's hard to find a woman who can speak to the topic as an expert at managing it. And even if she does exist, none of us could relate to her, which was what the event was about.

These women were sitting in confession via a stage in front of a couple dozen of their sisters. We were assembled for CAST (Coming Alive, Scheming Together) #1: Busyness at Campus Christian Center in Tempe. In between soul-centering and vision-adjusting worship by Kerri and Donielle, each presenter arose to share her journey and unique perspective on the topic that linked them all.

I started the day by stating that our Creator wants us to be busy, but with what is best, not simply what is good. I referenced Dallas Willard's charge to eliminate hurry (an internal state), not busyness (an external state).

We witnessed Kristen's original animation of two plants, one choosing to succumb to the temptations provided by weeds, and the other enduring sun and rain to grow.

Noel reminded us of the significance of rest, using Matthew 11:28 as a springboard. Charith told us about how she's working to become more present and intentional. I recounted a story about experiencing the results of tithing time, referencing Luke 6:38. Mollie reinforced the need for boundaries so we don't miss out on what we're really here for.

But it wasn't just the words. It was the fact that we all nodded at the realizations, the feelings, the feelizations. It was the communal coming alive and being called forth by our loving Daddy out of our individual, isolated comfort zones into something great, something bigger than any of us. We didn't know each other, but we needed each other, and the Spirit was cracking us open so we could truly own that.

The first hour ran late because of technical glitches (the video for the newly-launched Verses 3 to 5 website being one), and the natural expansion that happens when we feel safe to share. But that is what the second hour was for, so it was an effective segue into the conversational spaces. Women broke off into rooms to pray together, share their lives, and link up with plans for accountability and action.

Before the event started, a group of guys were in the worship center finishing up their ministry. They helped me get the A/V working and asked what we were doing. I told them it was an event for women: "A bunch of us are going to present on busyness, and then sit and talk about it." They rolled their eyes and remarked, "That is definitely for women."

And I love that we have this.

Too Close to Define

You know that experience when you're so close to something you can't really say anything about it? When it's feels like you're trying to build something and discover you're using water instead of packing snow? When you're afraid a remark about it would only touch part and miss the whole?

I remember someone joking that if you need the definition of "psychology", you should [counterintuitively] ask the first-semester psych major, not the PhD clinician.

That is where I am right now: Too close to define.

I'm in the process of putting together an event called CAST (Coming Alive, Scheming Together) for women in the metro Phoenix area who are passionate for Christ. A friend asked who my demographic would be, and I couldn't come up with much more than, "Any woman who loves Jesus and is open to the movement of the Spirit."

Queue eye roll.

I admit it's vague, as are many of the goals attached to it. Every time I've tried to come up with measurable outcomes for CAST, it seems as if some cosmic gameboard shifts and the rules invert. For this strategic-planner, that is unacceptable. I like mission statements, I like five-year plans, and I like knowing what I'm asking people to sign up for.

This has been a humbling time of challenge for me, to say the least.

And yet I know it has been a project our loving Daddy has gifted to me, and I have no doubt He has his own plans for it, even if they won't fit in a binder with tabs and timelines.

Even though I'm way too close to it, I'm going to attempt to describe here what He put in my heart a few months ago. CAST is meant to be an event where multiple women present (speak, sing, or perform) on a common theme during the first hour, and in the second hour the participants meet with the presenters and each other to pray, discuss, and dream together how to use their own passions and gifts to take action. It's what we as women do all the time, but don't often have the encouragement to follow through on it. It's an opportunity to come alive, to exit our isolation and enter connection, to engage in conversations on social justice and the global church and personal growth and serving and leading and the heart of our Lord, to be transformed and then do some transforming to expand the Kingdom.

Because we as women are powerful when we join together. Our Daddy knows this. He longs for us to be the healers, the dreamers, the activists, the advocates, the creators, the defenders, the warriors He designed us to be, and to have each others' backs as sisters.

As my planning team - yes, team! He has taught me to bring on a team, not just do it myself, which is so appropriate for this event about joining together - encountered yet another obstacle to birthing this creation, I spent an evening poring over scripture. I was feeling discouraged after yet another major plot twist in our saga, and I needed to know He would be faithful. And then He allowed me to stumble across this:

~So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight... And no more than two or three speakers at a meeting, with the rest of you listening and taking it to heart. Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other. If you choose to speak, you’re also responsible for how and when you speak. When we worship the right way, God doesn’t stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches—no exceptions.~
1 Corinthians 14:26, 29-33 (MSG)

Right. Between. The. Eyes.

To have this level of specificity without having encountered this passage anytime recently - that's the way the Spirit works, my friends! I'm still awestruck with a few lingering goosebumps.

So we press forward in faith and newfound obedience.

I find it a magnificent "coincidence" that my fast for Lent was from relying on my own resources, because there have been many times when I was so tempted to activate my superpowers to solve our problems. Of course, it wouldn't have worked anyway, but the decision to preemptively step aside and fully rely on Him and on others has taught me new discipline, trust, and interdependency.

As a result, when this is a success (by His standards, not mine), all the glory will be His. And that puts my parameter-craving psyche to rest.