OBX Fishing

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Read: drive as far east as you can (literally) in North Carolina on winding small town roads, and take a one-hour ferry ride to a 15+ mile narrow strip of sand. It was a good time. I went with Kurt’s family and friends (he’s senior designer at PinPoint). His Dad cooked far too much (incredibly tasting) food and I got to partake in such southern fare as dirty eggs, fried fish and shrimp, red hot dogs, jalapeño sausage patties, peach cobbler and, well, …twinkies.

We went to fish. I’m not sure what that conjures in your mind, but it brought back fond memories of going brook trout fishing in Canada with my Dad. We’d leave early in the morning from our summer cottage and trek down to the closest brook. We’d fish, stop to clean them on the way out and then fry them up on an open fire behind our cottage.

Well, this weekend was different. We left on Thursday and stayed in dormitory living with no electricity. And we fished a lot. Four to five hours at a time. And twice a day! We got up fairly early and returned to the “lodge” well after dark. We did this for 3 days.

The others had all the right “stuff”. The right rods, reels, bait, weights, lures, clothes, nets, etc. I bought a surf-quality rod and reel and some hooks and weights before we left, so I could feel like I blended in. Kurt told me what to buy.

As much as you try, fishing, as I’ve come to realize, is not as dependent on the fisherman as it is on the fish. Which struck me on the second day, standing on the beach waiting for something to take my shrimp bait. Waiting. And then… waiting some more.

Perhaps this is what you’re feeling as you make sure that your Church looks great and your programs are top notch. You have all the right “stuff”. Then you wait.

I know why Christ said that we are fishers of men. It’s all a waiting game.

What this analogy tells me is that we need to be prepared. We need to have the right gear, the right desire and the right bait. Then we need to go where there’s fish, I mean… people. And the people determines the bait… I did it again… I mean, message. Once all that lines up, it becomes a waiting game for the people.

The guys I fished with this weekend knew the area well, knew the fish we were there to catch, and knew the type of bait that makes them salivate. (do fish salivate?) With a little effort, and a lot of waiting, we caught fish. Blues, Red drum, Black drum, Shark and Flounder.

If we hadn’t caught fish, it would have been a good time of fellowship, getting to know fellow believers and feeding our bellies. But we wouldn’t have described the weekend a success.

“Become fishers of men,” Jesus said. Is your church all about fellowship and happy bellies? Or are you seeking success? Every day at PinPoint, we help supply the right message to the right audience, so that your church can fish well. As Christ commanded. But, like fishing, it’s harder than it looks. And it’s dependent on the fish.

What are your thoughts about ways to “catch fish”?