[learn_press_profile]
Well known Vancouverite, restauranteur and baseball fan Nathaniel Ryan Bailey came to the city in 1911 when he and his family moved from Minnesota. He was nine years old and quickly discovered Athletic Park, where he watched the Vancouver Beavers and others play baseball. He quickly endeared himself to fans in the stands and began announcing games, working in concessions, and selling peanuts in the stands. That was just his beginning!
Young Mr. Bailey then bought himself a Model T and converted it to a food truck. He would drive it out to Vancouver’s Lookout Point and sell ice cream for five cents and hot dogs for ten cents. While he was doing this, he was dreaming about opening a restaurant. His dream got a little more focused when a customer at Bailey’s food truck yelled from his car, “Why don’t you bring it out to us.” He decided that his restaurant would be a drive-in restaurant.
After saving enough money from him job as a cashier at an insurance company, he jumped at an opportunity to open a barbecue restaurant in a small log cabin on 67th and Granville. He added a few things to his “local fare” menu such as chicken pick’ns, meat loaf, a triple triple burger and blueberry pie. This was Canada’s first drive-in restaurant and the first anywhere to have “car-hops” where the waiters would “hop to it” to deliver meals right to the patrons’ cars. It was here that he developed his famous “Triple-O Sauce.” By the time that Bailey retired and sold his restaurant chain there were thirteen White Spot Restaurants.
I think about the process that he must have gone through in building his restaurant chain. To move from being the cook, cashier, and waiter in his food truck to managing along with his wife Ouelette, thirteen restaurants and all their staff. I wonder how hard it was for him to let go of some of the things that he did. Was it tempting for him to still bring the food out to the cars himself once he had wait staff? Did he struggle to let other people cook for him when he was used to doing it himself? By 1955, he was having 10,000 cars a day coming to eat his burgers, milkshakes, and other foods. There were 110,000 guests a week. There is no way that he could do that all himself; he had to include others in the process, or it wouldn’t have worked. He needed to decide what kind of restaurant he wanted and then build the team that would allow him to accomplish that.
As we “Regather the Church and Renew our Mission,” we are faced with that same question that Nat Bailey had to ask himself. What kind of place do we want to be? I do not expect that there is anyone in our church that is planning on us becoming a place where we can serve 110,000 guests a week, but are we ready to see the church grow and have the kind of impact that we believe that we can have? Do we want to be a place that truly nurtures and equips a community of disciples that are prepared to cultivate God’s values in the world? Can we be a place that sees the potential that we have to develop a church that gives people the opportunities to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ?
We cannot do that if we are waiting on a small group of people to do the work that it takes! Just as a growing restaurant needs waiters, servers, cooks and dishwashers, our church needs people who are ready to serve, lead and do the background work necessary to be the church. I know that I tend to be someone who takes on more than I should in order to make life easier for other people. That is in my nature and in many ways it is what makes me a good pastor. However, if I am not careful it will be my downfall as well. I need to make sure that I am not just doing the work of the church but empowering the church to be all that the church can be. I need to be calling others to the task of crafting, being and leading the church. And this isn’t just about me. We need you to step in and find where God is calling you to serve. What role can you play in the helping make this church what it is called to be?
Our mission as a church cannot be focused on ourselves and our church; our mission is to cultivate God’s values in the world. However, we do that by nurturing this community of disciples. We do that by equipping each other to serve. So, while our mission field is in the world not in our church structures and service to one another, we need to tend to that in order to become the kind of church we want to be! So, I am asking you. Where could you serve? Where could you lead? Where could you support others? As we regather the church and renew our mission, we are going to ask each other what role can you play in this mission? We need our pastors, our planners, our teachers, our property.
Maybe we should go to White Spot and talk more about this! Interested?
