Why Be Conventional?

Today I have to cross the bridge and drive through the marsh in Savannah for meetings. Luckily they are with friends whom I love. Tomorrow on the other hand, Chelsea and I are driving to Atlanta (which believes it is the Center of the Universe). There are not many reasons that would get me to Atlanta these days but Dr. Jim Withers is one.

Jim is the founder of Operation Safety Net in Pittsburgh and he practices medicine on the streets where people actually need it. He is also the founder of the International Street Medicine Institute which carries the practice world-wide. I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

We are gathering in Atlanta to interview a candidate for the position of Executive Director. I’ve never been a big believer in the interview process, so Jim was horrified when I asked the candidate to see if she could get us tickets to the Braves game. We would conduct the interview there.

“What are you doing?” Jim asked.

“What better way to get to know if she’s resourceful or not?” I replied. “If she can score the tickets for free then we know she knows how to work the system.”

“Um-hum,” he replied.

“Then we can see if she understands baseball, drinks beer, can eat a hot dog without spilling mustard on her shirt, and has a sense of humor. What better way to interview someone?”

A few days later we got an e-mail that she had scored the tickets so it is off to Atlanta I go. Jim remains apprehensive but is allowing me to drive the process.

I have never been accused of being conventional. In fact when I was a professional Christian working at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville, I would often have to travel to corporate headquarters in Atlanta because I was in trouble with the Baptists. They would fly me in, tell that I couldn’t do the things that I was doing, and then I would go to a Braves game before returning to Louisville and continuing to do the things that I’d been doing. Good times!

During the last days I was at Union Mission, the Chairman of the Board (who wishes to remain anonymous) told me that he didn’t like his name used publicly. “Fine,” I replied, “I’ll just refer to you as the Chairman of the Board who chooses to remain anonymous.”

He laughed and said, “You have never been conventional.”

“Union Mission would never have become what it did if I were conventional,” I told him.

And that is true. Conventionality is way over rated.

New things don’t happen if you follow the same rules all of the time. New discoveries aren’t made if you keep doing things the same way. You don’t grow if you do not challenge yourself by breaking away from the safe, familiar routine. Adventures don’t occur if you lock yourself in the car and refuse to participate. The joy of an adrenaline rush never occurs if you stay in line. God is not praised if you never create.

So I got a lot to do today.

You do too.