olives
by D.O.
Three months into this Dallas gig, and I’m still an orphan when it comes to churches. I really wish that my opening statement only applied to me, and not to the countless other people to whom I’ve spoken since I’ve been here. Scores of people are in the same boat I am, living in a new place, and missing the church family they grew to deeply love back in their college towns. Some of my boat-mates have been in it up to three times longer than I have. This is a problem.
I’ve visited a number of churches since moving to Dallas. There are no shortage of churches to visit here, as I’m sure you can imagine. I’ve been to some that are big, some that are small. Some that emphasize community, some that emphasize relevancy. Some that are firmly founded in Biblical principles and others whose pastors forgot to use the Bible in their entire sermon. Some with sound theology and some with… well… questionable theology.
As of late I’ve been visiting Watermark Community Church. At first I was hesitant of this particular body because upon reviewing every single line of their entire website, I learned that they were building a new facility to accommodate their growth, and that the building was to include a coffee shop. For some reason I’ve never liked coffee shops that were built in churches. I’m sure I’ve got some decent reasons for my dislike of said shops (perhaps one being that I don’t even like coffee), and I’m sure that many of the churches who’ve included shops on their campuses have good reasons too.
My second week at Watermark the guy sitting next to me learned that I was a visitor, and he immediately wrote down his email address and encouraged me–genuinely, not obligatorily–to contact him if I ever wanted to go to church with someone as opposed to flying solo. (Now keep in mind that I don’t really fly to church, I drive in my car. If I flew to church every week, then my having a problem with the church putting in a coffee shop would be the least of my worries.) The single act of “Chewy” (that’s his nickname) giving me both a sincere invitation and an email address spoke volumes about the church. It really did. That kind of stuff should happen 1,500 times more than it does.
So after the service that week I filled out the ever-dorky visitor tab of the bulletin and put it in the tithe box for lack of other places to put it. I expected to hear back via a generic mass email or something within the week, but no such email ever found its way to my inbox. Tonight, three weeks later, I got a letter in the mail from Watermark with a hand-written note apologizing that the email failed to get to me. The girl who wrote the note actually printed the email and sent it snail mail style (which is certainly the first time I’ve ever received an email in my house mail box) with a note stating that she’d tried to send it before, but it continually failed to send. How’d that happen? Well apparently I have unintelligible handwriting, because Watermark thinks my name is Derrick Olives. They think my email is derrickolives@gmail.com, and they are wrong on both accounts. I am thankful that my last name is Oliver, and not Olives.
Comments
I hope you continue to have good experiences at Watermark. I have several friends from college days living in Dallas that are a part of the church there. If you want another random guy’s contact info, I’d be glad to give it to you. He loves the Big C too and used to live there.
mr. olives, i laughed for about 5 minutes on this one. you’re great. keep it up, i know it’s frustrating sometimes! watermark has some tight family there.
very nice people skills from Chewy.
impressive.
oh, and this is for the previous post: your beard is looking strong!
You look like a true REIer. Oh, and I met your Italian twin last week. Matteo. You’d be friends.
I like the last name Olives. It sounds fun…and green…or black…but still fun.
Get plugged in a church, D.O. For real. If you don’t find one fast I’m going to demand you come back here. Demand. Put my foot down….you know…all those things that people who have “had it” do.
Hi Olives
Welcome to the big D and welcome to Watermark. I share your general mistrust of church coffee shops to a degree and I’d bet that church bookstores and “cult of personality” preachers with their names on the wall don’t much float your boat either.
“Some that emphasize community, … relevancy … firmly founded in Biblical principles … sound theology …”
I personnally think Watermark hits pretty well here across the board. It’s really hard for every job to be Job #1.
I don’t think I can help you plug in much (I’m 45 with a bunch of kids) but I know there is a great community of young adults here to belong to. Good to have you with us.
Be blessed,
Vince <><
D.O.,
(Man, when you use your name as a greeting, there’s more punctuation than letters.)
Anson tagged you!
That means you have to write a blog post and tell everyone 5 things that they don’t know about you.
And then you get to tag 5 other people.
At least you don’t have to come up with an idea for your next blog post. We’ve given you the subject, you just fill in the details.
We’re waiting.
rebekah’s sister works at watermark…i think. do you care? probably not.
hey the person i worked for who payed iW instead of me goes to church there
yay
Hey D.O.,
I just stumbled onto your blog today. My name is Julie and I think maybe we met at A&M. Anyways, I go to Watermark and am totally loving it. If you want to get involved with people our age here, there is this thing called the Porch that meets on Tuesday nights at 7pm. There is also a Men’s Bible Study that will start up in February that a lot of my guy friends have gotten a lot out of. If you are interested in either, let me know and I’ll get you the details.
I go to Watermark and know “Chewy”. Not a better person to meet than him on a Sunday morning.
Funny thing Derrick…I work for Watermark and one of the things I do on the side is RUN the coffee ministry!
I agree…Coffee Areas can sometimes be a little trendy and lack personal substance to truly facilitate friendships as people kill themselves with caffeine. But, as I think you realized, one of the main things people look for in a church is not the good coffee, but some good and kind people to enjoy while listening to how the Lord may want to encourage you…which you experienced a taste of.
I pray that you continue to experience meeting good folks as you engage with other folks and that you can be the next friendly person who helps a first-time-visitor to Watermark feel warmed and welcomed by much more than our free coffee (which is very good BTW
))
I’m often by the coffee area before and after the 1st service, so come on by…it’d be great to meet ya.
Thanks for sharing your encouragement with us.
Troy Dandrea
Derrick,
I found your blog while doing a search for bloggers. I like your site and it just happens to be that I know Chewy very well and his wife Lindsey and I go to Watermark. I’m really glad you had a good experience. It really is a small world. Have a great day.
Derrick, love your honesty on where you are in the journey on checking things out at wm and your open speech forum blog. Its great. I’m from the midwest and my ole pastor would often tell us, “Hey just remember, its not about quanitity, its about quality”. So on that note, where ever you decide to take root, I hope you find a place where you can experience deep quality friendships, even just a 3-4 that are authentic and real are far better than 500 shallow ones. So in the end its not about the numbers or mass quanitity..for you see its not how much you have, but the quality of what you got. Hope to meet ya sometime at wm 5:30 service. be blessed!