Five years ago as I was planning a city-wide event to honor WWII veterans, The Honorable Mayor of Holland at the time, Al McGeehan shared with me a concept that has been rumbling around in my head (there’s a lot of room for it to rumble). The concept is a simple one but it changed the entire planning for the event.
The company that I work for began right after the end of WWII. To commemorate our 60th anniversary the owner of our parent company asked me to “throw a party for the city of Holland” for the celebration. It didn’t take but a few seconds for me to start planning a VJ (Victory in Japan) Day celebration to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the ending of the war and to honor those of the “greatest generation” that served our country.
As I began planning….. in one of my rare moments of brilliance I asked the Mayor to be on an informal committee I was putting together. Mayor Al (now the former Mayor, as he retired from that position about a year ago) is a retired high school history teacher so I knew he not only would be a great advocate for the event, but also would have some good historical perspective on how VJ day was originally celebrated back in 1945.
Mayor Al not only brought historical perspective, he also suggested and recruited some WWII veterans and local people that experienced VJ Day here in Holland, MI. Those “eye witnesses” helped shape the three day event that we put together that included many of the same elements of the original VJ Day celebration.
More than the historical perspective and the “recruits” Mayor Al in our first meeting said, “Gary, you need to go where the people are”. I thought great but where are they? Well it just “happened” that on the opening night of our planned celebration there was an event scheduled for downtown Holland, so we planned a “dancing in the streets” event (just like it happened in 1945) complete with a swing band playing period music. On the closing night the American Legion Band “happened” to be scheduled to perform their final outdoor concert of the season. So we asked them to play period music and let us “sponsor” the concert and then provide a fireworks display at the conclusion.
The event was great fun as over a thousand folks showed up for “dancing in the streets” and some 4000-5000 for the American legion band concert and fireworks. If Mayor Al had not wisely advised me to go where the people are (and divine providence provide such great events that we could partner up with), I do not think that the event would have been on the front page of the newspaper three days in a row nor would it have been so well attended.
That day I learned a valuable lesson. Not only did I learn “to go where the people are” I learned that there are outside influences that can make a bigger impact than you alone can create. I should also add that it was reinforced to me that to do something right you need to have the right people involved. Without Mayor Al and the half-dozen other community leaders that served on my informal steering committee the event would have never been as successful and fun as it was.
What is your lesson from reading this story?
1) Get the right people involved!
2) Go where the people are!
3) Discover and find the one thing that will make the biggest impact on your ministry!
It is easy in retrospect to see the great wisdom in Mayor Al’s suggestion “to go where the people are”. What wisdom are you getting from the people around you that will make your ministry successful beyond your highest expectations???
