A lesson (?!) perhaps from the weekend… A tale of one object telling 2 completely different stories.
I took the church’s smoker/grill to a marching band competition/festival at K-State in Manhattan, KS on Saturday night. As a “band dad”, I though it would be a great way to help provide food for the students and also begin some conversations about our church. My initial naivete would soon yield some costly lessons.
Lesson One – Clear the Air First
This particular smoker/grill is fantastic. Unfortunately, the use of it requires special week-long training. Ok, not that bad, but, it’s not the typical backyard grill. On your typical backyard grill, you have one or two valves to open. This grill has, count them, FIVE! And one of them isn’t a simple “on/off” kind of valve. So, there’s a learning curve. Fortunately, after being a part of a “fire shooting vertically from the grill valve” incident, I have generally learned (after getting the thing fixed) how to operate the grill side. Rock on.
However, there is another side to the smoker/grill… The Smoker. As the grill side is typically “lots of heat fast”, the smoker side is “some heat slow”. I challenged that notion for a brief split second. We were going to use the smoker side to keep the burgers warm before the band lined up to consume them. The smoker has a fire box, a big black metal box where the fire is stoked to create the smoke and heat to slow cook tasty ribs and chicken and pork butt. This particular smoker has a burner fed from a propane tank. The burner helps to start the wood/charcoal on it’s way to incineration. Simple enough? Yeah… I put the charcoal in the box and topped with some starting fluid to help things along even more. I opened the 4 valves to the fire box and lit the thing and it ignited! Cool! Well on our way!
One of the issue with the fire box is that the burner is a long bar on the bottom of the box. As debris falls and coals form and the coals turn into ash, it falls around this bar. I may have also not had the box cleaned up properly. So, there was previous ash. I look in there and realize the fire is out. I open the top to smell if there is a buildup of gas, and I didn’t smell anything. So. I shut the top and opened the side door to light the fire.
Ok, just because you don’t smell something doesn’t mean it’s not there. I bend down, lighter in hand and just as I start to pull the trigger my mind goes something like this, “maybe I shouldn’t pull the trigger before letting the air out of…”
WHOOSH.
That was the sound of a split second fire bomb that is responsible for the loss of the hair on my forearms, singed beard and eyebrows, a flash sunburn on my face, singed nostrils and burn on my left hand. And finger hair? Yep. Used to have that sort of thing. And I thought my hands were dry before…
Fortunately hair grows back. And a simple shave takes care of most of the evidence. My bruised ego with the other band dads? That should clear in time too. Lesson learned? Hopefully. I knew better from the start.
Lesson Two – Count the Cost
I offered the smoker/grill at the start of the band marching season. The band owns their own grill that actually works pretty good. But, the head band dad took me up on the offer for this particular trip. It all seemed so easy to me. But, as I bought some ribs for the adults, paid for fuel for the vehicle, toll charges, cleanup charges, etc. it all came at a much higher cost that the “free” I had initially though of when offering it. All at a poor time for us to be spending that extra cash. Extra?! Ha!
I don’t regret the offer. Overall, I think it was extremely successful.
In Conclusion
It’s hard to describe how a simple (well, it is actually pretty impressive) smoker/grill can start conversations about church and the like. “Is that yours?” or “Where did that come from?” were common questions being asked. No hard core proselytizing going on. Just conversations. And then responses like, “If your church eats that good all the time, I’m showing up!” The mere presence speaks for itself. No brochures handed out. Nothing that flashy. But conversations, real conversations.
Will it lead to anything? I’m not sure. It probably won’t directly, but, doors are opened. Conversations started. Relationships established. That’s what it’s about. All thru the power of propane.
