Everybody, Always

My friends and I have been trying a live-event experiment called “Living
Room.” It’s a place that doesn’t have any stages. We had the first one at
our home in San Diego, and we didn’t give any details. We didn’t tell
anyone who was going to be there, who would speak, who would play
music, or what we were going to do if they came. We just said everyone
was invited. This is the way Jesus did it. After Jesus went to heaven, His
friends invited everyone to their living rooms too. They broke bread
together and had things in common. That’s what we were aiming for.
Even though I’m very outgoing in public, Sweet Maria and I are pretty
private people, so the idea of inviting strangers into our house was a little
unsettling. Particularly for Sweet Maria, who is more introverted. We had
no idea if someone would come out of our bedroom wearing my boxers
and carrying her umbrella.
We set the day and time to sign up and said we could fit about thirty
people in our living room, but we could squeeze sixty in. When the time
came, more than eight hundred people signed up in four minutes. The
ones we could fit came over, and we had a terrific time together. For the
rest, we rented the House of Blues next to Disneyland a short time later. I
called a few more friends to come and speak and play music. Then we
handed out tickets to Disneyland, where we did our breakout sessions.
The people who wanted to talk about their futures met one of the speakers
in Tomorrowland. The ones who wanted to talk about their biggest fears
met at the Haunted Mansion. A friend of mine who works with the
homeless was on Main Street. Another who is a rapper was at
Cinderella’s Castle. I, of course, was by Tom Sawyer Island. I was
reminded that where we meet matters as much as what we say, maybe
even more. Some of the best conversations we could be having are
happening at the wrong places.
We had another event to bring people together. We didn’t pick the
most popular city in the country; we picked one of the least popular ones.