Late Night Thoughts

This weekend I've been given the opportunity to share at PCC and I must say I'm both nervous and excited about it. I've been able to do this twice so far - the first time on Faith & Creativity and the second time on Patience.

This weekend I'm sharing on Connecting or Community. Dean says that I should combine the words and call it "Connunity" or "Commecting". Not sure if I'll go for either of those.

Anyways, I am hashing over some things in my brain and thought I would dump it out here to see what you all think or if you have any comments to help me along the process.

- I'm thinking of somewhere mentioning my dislike for the general public. Having worked in customer service for a number of years, I have seen the good and the bad. I have also learned of my own personality. I'm very much an introvert though I disguise myself as an extrovert. Those two experiences have caused me to think twice about being friendly and connecting with everyone and anyone.

- I didn't enjoy high school. I hated it actually. I was picked on and disliked by a few people and they made my time there terrible. I was so glad to leave it behind me, BUT I feel I have something to share with people about my experiences there.

- I went to Bible College, I have worked in churches and I have been a part of churches for quite some time. Never have I ever felt so connected to a church body more so than I have at PCC. To be honest though, it didn't start that way. Over a year at PCC I knew about as many people as I have digits. My experiences in church have given me both negative and positive outlooks on church community.

- I possibly have found an old tape of someone special that I may share with people. Let's just say this person has a small mullet of joy in the video.

- I've learned a lot in public speaking in the last year and am debating how I'll approach my talk this Sunday. I'd like to be more on the conversational thought provoking side of things, more so than the here's my 3-4 points and conclusion on how, why, where and when you should be in community. I'm stuck on this as I feel there are some good stuff from both those angles.

- Lastly, I love the feeling of nervousness I get before something like this. I get pumped from it. I'm hoping to do well, but I keep having feelings of self doubt and uncertainity in my brain. I have this awful feeling like I'm going to bomb because so far I've done well, and maybe I'm due for a drop. That's just what's in my brain, need to combat it out I guess.

So yeah, some basic, raw thoughts that I'm carrying with me right now and needed to share because I won't sleep otherwise.

Hope you all are well and talk soon I think some guy left another ransom video on my desk that I may need to share with some people tomorrow. We'll see.

Matthew A Hawkins