Anthony Sedlak is a character. He honestly introduced himself in the manner you saw on the show, except more so. We were all gathered under the shelter at the Co-Op in the POURING RAIN, Bruce and Joti introduced the week's challenge to us, and Anthony ran in, ducking and weaving through the crowds, jumping over several tall grocery carts in a single bound, and... falling on his but. He came in full of energy, and stayed that way through the challenge.
Of course, he wasn't really challenged.
The participants in the Million Dollar Neighbourhood were more or less challenged by this week's challenge. Cooking at home and not buying alcohol was not a challenge for us, but for others it was huge. I mean, Mark and Kyle spending over a thousand dollars a month on wine? Wow! Other families have at least one meal out a day! Sure, we eat out probably more than we should, but this week's challenge, as far as that goes, wasn't a huge challenge for us. Still, we were chomping at the bit to get more groceries by the end of the week! What really shocked us was that 16/52 (4/13) of our food throughout the year goes to waste! We really want to cut that down.
The location for the Once In A Million Wine & Dine was gorgeous. Once again, I helped with Entertainment. This is where I got to know Jonathan and Teresa Penner (and their family) better. They had great contacts for this type of event, and the production company provided the sound equipment this week. The band that the Penners found happened to be one I'd worked with before as well. Ron Koyanagi, the pianist, was on Taralyn's worship team at a previous church, and I knew Peter Davyduck, the bassist, from another former church. The trio's smooth jazz music was fantastic, and provided an amazing sonic background to add to the amazing visual background.
The food was also amazing. I didn't interact with Anthony too much. He did a few things in town over the week, the most prominent being a singles dinner for the town's singles. They were thrilled. After that, he went to TJ and Phaedra's, which you see on the show. The MDNers got the leftovers. Not entirely equally. OK, not all the MDNers got the leftovers. But I'm sure those who got them were blessed. The alcohol was good - we had Dead Frog Brewery on site offering generous samples of their nut brown, pepper lime, and mandarin orange beers. They were very good. So was the wine. I'll try to remember what we served for those who want to know. Bob Long, one of the guests at the dinner is a township councilor and also the owner of Bob's Bar and Grill where I worked as a server when we first moved to Aldergrove, and one of my thrills was serving him wine all afternoon. He had let me go as a server a year and a half earlier.
So, the price was $250. Honestly, I didn't ever have a problem with that. I knew that the caliber of event we were looking to pull off (and we DID pull off) is not for your average middle income family. This is for people who enjoy fancy luncheons and gala dinners. The issue wasn't the ticket price. I even talked to a few couples who would have been there - in fact for some the ticket price was a compelling reason that they wanted to attend. They don't want to go to just another $20 dinner; instead, they want something more high class, bigger, more fancy. A $250 ticket already communicates those things. The issue was the short notice. Honestly, 6 days to sell all these tickets. Didn't really work out.
The emergency meeting at the barn was a gong show. Joti was set up by the production company to come down hard on the group, and emotions ran high - exactly the thing that makes good TV. I wonder if they told her to say the word "Lazy", but it made a great emotional television effect. The reason I don't appear on TV is probably that I was kind of chuckling through the meeting. Others really got their feathers ruffled. They HAD worked hard on this, and they reacted to Joti in no uncertain terms. What you see on the episode doesn't even show how emotional people got, which was a surprise to me. But Joti particularly was upset afterwards, afraid she looked like the bad guy. Many of the participants felt that way. She was just doing her job.
At the end, it was a beautiful event. Unfortunately, Taralyn couldn't make it because she had a children's ministry meeting at the church. But I was so blessed to be a part of it. I spent the first hour or so helping to set up the stage and sound, then brushed up on the art of the pour and served wine for the rest of the event. I just couldn't keep myself from looking over the view - it was gorgeous. Nickelback's Chad Kroeger's recording studio is literally a block away. The guests were all VERY happy with the event. It was incredible.
So what was the Gospel impact at this point? Again, I was just getting to know people. I'd connected with the Penners, who are also Christians. I'd shared my dream of starting a new church in town with a number of people, who I knew were checking to see if I was genuine. For people in Aldergrove, being 'genuine' doesn't mean that a Christian doesn't drink or dance or swear. It means that they care, they work hard, they laugh, they live. Aldergrove residents don't respond well to Christians who look down their noses at the way everybody else lives. They respond much better to those whose lives they can relate to, who they know care about the things they care about, and who have a different perspective to share. Because of my witness in this commnunity, I have had opportunity to share the Gospel with some of these people who have rejected Christians all their lives.
I'm looking forward to seeing what else we did last fall in the upcoming episodes!
Of course, he wasn't really challenged.
The participants in the Million Dollar Neighbourhood were more or less challenged by this week's challenge. Cooking at home and not buying alcohol was not a challenge for us, but for others it was huge. I mean, Mark and Kyle spending over a thousand dollars a month on wine? Wow! Other families have at least one meal out a day! Sure, we eat out probably more than we should, but this week's challenge, as far as that goes, wasn't a huge challenge for us. Still, we were chomping at the bit to get more groceries by the end of the week! What really shocked us was that 16/52 (4/13) of our food throughout the year goes to waste! We really want to cut that down.
The location for the Once In A Million Wine & Dine was gorgeous. Once again, I helped with Entertainment. This is where I got to know Jonathan and Teresa Penner (and their family) better. They had great contacts for this type of event, and the production company provided the sound equipment this week. The band that the Penners found happened to be one I'd worked with before as well. Ron Koyanagi, the pianist, was on Taralyn's worship team at a previous church, and I knew Peter Davyduck, the bassist, from another former church. The trio's smooth jazz music was fantastic, and provided an amazing sonic background to add to the amazing visual background.
The food was also amazing. I didn't interact with Anthony too much. He did a few things in town over the week, the most prominent being a singles dinner for the town's singles. They were thrilled. After that, he went to TJ and Phaedra's, which you see on the show. The MDNers got the leftovers. Not entirely equally. OK, not all the MDNers got the leftovers. But I'm sure those who got them were blessed. The alcohol was good - we had Dead Frog Brewery on site offering generous samples of their nut brown, pepper lime, and mandarin orange beers. They were very good. So was the wine. I'll try to remember what we served for those who want to know. Bob Long, one of the guests at the dinner is a township councilor and also the owner of Bob's Bar and Grill where I worked as a server when we first moved to Aldergrove, and one of my thrills was serving him wine all afternoon. He had let me go as a server a year and a half earlier.
So, the price was $250. Honestly, I didn't ever have a problem with that. I knew that the caliber of event we were looking to pull off (and we DID pull off) is not for your average middle income family. This is for people who enjoy fancy luncheons and gala dinners. The issue wasn't the ticket price. I even talked to a few couples who would have been there - in fact for some the ticket price was a compelling reason that they wanted to attend. They don't want to go to just another $20 dinner; instead, they want something more high class, bigger, more fancy. A $250 ticket already communicates those things. The issue was the short notice. Honestly, 6 days to sell all these tickets. Didn't really work out.
The emergency meeting at the barn was a gong show. Joti was set up by the production company to come down hard on the group, and emotions ran high - exactly the thing that makes good TV. I wonder if they told her to say the word "Lazy", but it made a great emotional television effect. The reason I don't appear on TV is probably that I was kind of chuckling through the meeting. Others really got their feathers ruffled. They HAD worked hard on this, and they reacted to Joti in no uncertain terms. What you see on the episode doesn't even show how emotional people got, which was a surprise to me. But Joti particularly was upset afterwards, afraid she looked like the bad guy. Many of the participants felt that way. She was just doing her job.
At the end, it was a beautiful event. Unfortunately, Taralyn couldn't make it because she had a children's ministry meeting at the church. But I was so blessed to be a part of it. I spent the first hour or so helping to set up the stage and sound, then brushed up on the art of the pour and served wine for the rest of the event. I just couldn't keep myself from looking over the view - it was gorgeous. Nickelback's Chad Kroeger's recording studio is literally a block away. The guests were all VERY happy with the event. It was incredible.
So what was the Gospel impact at this point? Again, I was just getting to know people. I'd connected with the Penners, who are also Christians. I'd shared my dream of starting a new church in town with a number of people, who I knew were checking to see if I was genuine. For people in Aldergrove, being 'genuine' doesn't mean that a Christian doesn't drink or dance or swear. It means that they care, they work hard, they laugh, they live. Aldergrove residents don't respond well to Christians who look down their noses at the way everybody else lives. They respond much better to those whose lives they can relate to, who they know care about the things they care about, and who have a different perspective to share. Because of my witness in this commnunity, I have had opportunity to share the Gospel with some of these people who have rejected Christians all their lives.
I'm looking forward to seeing what else we did last fall in the upcoming episodes!
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