On the road trip here to Wisconsin often the only radio station I could get was the NPR. More often than not I chose to go without than listen to it, but occassionally they had a story that caught my attention. One was the story of Sidney Torres, owner of SDT Waste Management in New Orleans. The other story was a guy who sold his tattoo, skin & all to be framed after he dies…I’ll hold off on that one for another time. Anyway the story of SDT is pretty cool, when other waste management companies left the city during the time of Katrina, that’s when SDT showed up. And show up they did, with a unique spin on garbage. Rather than just going in and being content to do things the way they’d always been done, Torres led his company to be remarkable. Instead of the dumpy green trucks we normally see on the streets, his trucks are washed everyday…with a sleek black look. The employees wear stylized black jumpsuits, and rather than just spraying off the roads of the French Quarter they add a lemon scent to spruce up the smell of the place. I love hearing stories of people not afraid to think and act out of the box. In Seth Godin’s book the “Big Moo” he has a simple line that always sticks with me “stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable.” Torres took something as ordinary as it gets in garbage, and created something remarkable in the community. Torres and the workers of SDT have made garbage removal a point of conversation and pride in their community. It’s stories like that which should challenge us as believers. Here we have the hope of the world, we have something that truly is worth talking about…and yet are we always living out God’s perfect love for us in a remarkable way. See my hope and prayer for Green County is that as a campus we’re not just one more church in the area. My hope is that we would be a remarkable church…a church that looks for ways and opportunities to encourage those around us…from buying the coffee of the person behind us, to shoveling a neighbors driveway, to praying for those who hurt. We would be remarkable as a community without fear of trying, even failing at some things, in an effort to make God’s voice louder in Green County. We would be remarkable by simply loving, caring, and partnering with the community around. We would be remarkable through unity, that we as a campus would always know we’re in this together, and it’s going to take everyone of us to live out God’s destiny for Crossroads Monroe.
“If someone asks you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” – Jesus
Remarkable: –adjective 1. notably or conspicuously unusual; extraordinary: a remarkable change.
2. worthy of notice or attention.
You go brother… be remarkable!