The Comfort Zone Two-Step

I attend a small church in a rural area. We have contemporary worship and are probably more “progressive” than many places in our area, but we’re still a country church at heart. This weekend I attended an event in my old college town, and this morning I went to church there with my son.

This church was . . . well, different. First of all, it was held in a school gym, with a “theater in the round” set-up in the middle of the gym floor. The music was even more contemporary than my home church, and two of the musicians were wearing beanie-style toboggans (if I tried that, I would BURN SLAP UP). Huge video monitors surrounded the stage catching all of the action, and the lighting reminded me of a concert. The associate pastor took to the makeshift pulpit for offering time, and he was wearing an old ball cap and a flannel shirt, looking like he was getting ready to work in the garden.

I had that Dorothy Gale feeling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. But here’s the deal: I enjoyed the service, and, as we say at home, I got a blessing from it.

Early on in the service, I realized it didn’t matter about the venue or the style of music or the ministry leaders’ fashion choices. I had to open my heart to the real reason I was there—to worship, to connect with the Lord. As long as my heart was ready, I could receive.

Isn’t it the same with reading and writing? Sometimes we have to step out of our genre or style and try something new.

A few years ago, I decided to get outside my comfort zone as a reader. It all started when I followed a blog that featured a popular Christian suspense writer.

I have a confession to make: when it comes to reading and entertainment, I am the biggest chicken you can imagine. Suspense and horror are just not my cup of tea. I’ve seen one horror movie in my lifetime, when I was 13, and that was quite enough for me, thank you very much.

The blog was offering an advance reader copy of the author’s soon-to-be-released novel, so I went out on a limb and signed up for one. After all, I never pass up a free book. When it arrived in the mail, I thought, how nice, and left it alone. I’d walk by it often, move it from place to place, avoiding actually opening the book. Slowly but surely, I worked up my courage to begin reading. I would read, get scared, and walk away. This cycle continued until the wonderful, suspenseful writing pulled me in. The book became hard to put down, until about an hour before bedtime each night, when I would watch a couple of episodes of The Brady Bunch or I Love Lucy, for good measure.

I finally finished the book and pronounced it “good.” I enjoyed the plotting, the characters, and the subtle yet evident faith message and even wrote a positive review for the blog.

I wasn’t totally converted, but that experience did lead me to read many other genres, including contemporary romance, Amish romance, chick-lit, adventure, western, and more. I’ve even attempted writing—with varying degrees of success—in different genres, trying to broaden my horizons. My experimentation paid off when, even though I have always loved writing humor, my first major publication was a serious essay.

The lesson I learned at the hip, new church is applicable to reading and writing: opening your heart to new things can lead to God’s blessings. He made different churches and different styles of writing to reach different people. So let’s do the Comfort Zone Two-Step! Who knows how God will use us when we try something new?