3 weeks at UPS

I'm getting ready to speak at a meeting for churches and leaders next week and I'm going to tell the story of my first job in seminary.  A friend worked at UPS and he said it was "great money" so he hooked me up with an interview.  I took the test and apparently I scored in the "knows how to put boxes in color coded bins" range because that's where they put me.  I was a sorter.  That meant I looked at addresses and put them in color coded bins on a conveyer that took them to the trucks.  Did I mention that the shift was 11pm - 4am? Did I mention I had only been in Raleigh, North Carolina for 2 weeks?  I barely could remember where I lived muchless where thousands of other streets were.  So began the adventure that would be one of the best educational experiences I had in seminary.  From those 3 weeks I learned so much about leadership, evangelism, church planting and no-doze(these were the days before RockStar, Monster, RedBull, etc).
Here's why I only stayed there 3 weeks:
I kept the trucks from leaving the parking lot.
If you know anything about UPS... you know that they make their money when their parking lot is empty and the trucks are delivering their packages.   They are in the Delivery/Distribution business.  When they are not delivering packages, they are not fulfilling their mission.  The church is in the Delivery/Distribution business as well.  When we're not delivering the message of the Gospel to those outside the walls of our church, we're not fulfilling our mission... the Great Commission.  In the next couple of posts I'll tell you some of the reasons I wasn't good at UPS and how that helped me in church planting and leadership.  Stay Tuned!