If you are local in the Mid-TN area, next Tuesday morning, April 9 at 6:30am is our first Tavern Talks morning meeting. For anyone wanting an early-morning boost of friendship, truth, storytelling, connection, and not afraid to meet in a cigar shop before your workday!
We are meeting at The Mission Cigar & Social in Spring Hill, TN. I appreciate the owners Mark Collins, Monte Collins and Willie Horton making the space available and encouraging me to do this. They started this shop with this exact type of thing in mind, a place for people to gather, talk about life and faith, tell jokes and stories, and make friends.
Cigars will be available; bring your coffee, your bible, a friend, and your Febreze if you have a meeting at the office afterward!
OUT OF THE CAVE….
A little vulnerable biographical info here….
Many of you who have known me for a while know I have been in a cave for several years. I experienced two significant betrayals in 2012, one in business and one in institutional church, and I just decided I was “done” with leading teams and public life. I was speaking in local business settings two to four times per week. I was also part of a global ministry that had me traveling around the world for several years, and I owned and built a business at the same time, as well as leading in a local Franklin church. Oh, and not to forget, I had 6 growing children that needed a focused father.
So I “retired” and stopped completely! Cold Turkey! All of it.
I would often get calls asking where I was or why I was no longer teaching anywhere. I went dark in one fell swoop and concentrated on my family and a few close friends.
I also began frequenting cigar shops and developed quite a network of friends as I spent time in those establishments. I discovered a fantastic group of people in these places and have made quite a few very close friends.
For a couple of years I started looking hard and long at what I actually believed. Everything went under the microscope. I stopped reading christian books, especially if they were published in the last 50 years or so, because I found them trite and shallow, more interested in spiffy phrases and trying to be relevant and cool with no depth. I also stopped reading the Bible and spent a lot of time digging through philosophies and other thought disciplines. I kept asking the question: “What’s real. What’s ultimate. What’s eternal. What is religion, man-made and temporary and what is built on a foundation that will not blow away.”
These ten years of basic silence have been very important for me. I will never stop pursuing Truth, but I also believe Truth is a Person not a bunch of dogmas and doctrines.
To start this Tavern Talks is my first “event” to host for ten years. I have avoided doing events and developed organic relationships. So I look forward to seeing how this unfolds as I stick my toe back in the water a little bit.
I get it if this early morning is not for you. And also if you don’t really like cigar shops. No sweat. We plan to host other “flash-mob” meetings of different kinds to get together with a focus of standing for the King of all kings and standing against the rising tide of cultural dissolution.
Looking up (Luke 21:28),
Tod Bell
Chief Tavern Host