The Haircut

One of the things I failed to do this weekend was to ask Tracy to cut my hair before I went to the conference office to record my three minute message for annual conference.  So this morning, I took it upon myself to drive up to Wylie to find a new place to get a haircut.  I knew that "barber shops" are a good place to talk to people and I wanted to use this moment to talk about the new church start and also just to get to know more people in the Wylie area.


I pulled up to the Great Clips at FM 544 and 78 and walked into an empty store wondering where the employees were.  From the back room in the store, a short middle aged Asian woman walks in and invites me to sit in her barber chair and she quickly went to work with her razor with the number 2 guard on it.


The conversation was slow at first, just some pleasantries, talking about the massive amount of rain, hail, thunder and lightening that just went through the area. To how long have you been cutting hair, etc., etc. 


Then the question came. She asked, "What do you do?" I took the opportunity to share that I was moving into the area to start a new church either in south Wylie or north Rowlett, starting in July of this year. She talked about attending First Baptist Garland and was genuinely excited about a new church coming to the area.  I asked questions about what she liked about church and listened as she finished up the hair cut and took the apron off of me.


We walked over to the cash register and I put down my credit card for her to swipe. When the receipt was handed to me, I scribbled down a $5.00 tip for her as a thank you for the wonderful job and great conversation we had.  She looked at me and told me to ignore the $5.00 tip because she wanted me to place that $5.00 in the offering plate when I held the first worship service at the new church.


I know that every conversation I will have about the new church start won't end as positive as this one, however, it was nice to have a moment where I was encouraged by a stranger as I started this journey of faith.


I'm looking forward to that Sunday, where I can take the five dollars I received today and use that gift to help grow a church that will connect people to the living Christ so they can share Christ's love with others.