Farewell to RockHarbor at The Shark Club
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Okay I don’t have an official bucket list, though I do have a short mental bucket list of church services. Attending the Shark Club service being on that list. Well it was now or never as today was the last day of services at the Shark Club.
For those of you not in the know, Shark Club is a bar/nightclub in Costa Mesa. Every Sunday morning for the past four years or so it got RockHarborfied for a few hours. The OC Register had a decent article about the service two years ago. Being that our mother church is a whole mile down the street, keeping this venue running just wasn’t fitting in with the vision of the church’s countywide outreach.
Other than just the unknown factor I had no anxiety as I arrived. I figured I’d see some familiar faces as it seems a large part of my LifeGroup attends here at least off and on. After a quick survey of the room, with the exception of Allicia a woman I know from 3rd Wednesday not a familiar face other than various church chiefs paying their last respects so to speak. I grab an end seat left of center. Todd and Drew were the worship leaders today. Shortly after the service started Monica from my LifeGroup showed up and sat next to me, she was quite happy to see me and that I followed through on my plan on attending. I also must note that this was the first time I’ve had a friend with me at a service. Monica has been attending and volunteering at The Shark Club for over a year. An instant before Todd announced that Jonny Hughes was delivering today’s message Jonny tapped a hello on my shoulder as he was walking up front. Jonny is the one pastor that I’ve gotten to know so far at RH. So it was feeling pretty homey in there with Jonny up front and Monica next to me.
The message in a word was Love. Due to my OCD I went to the Saturday night service so I had already heard the message as delivered by Steve. It was interesting to hear the same message from another person as it was different. Not in the body of the message but in the historical anecdotes around the edges.
At the start of the response time there was a call to stand if you needed prayer and for those around those standing to pray for them. Monica stood, so I joined her to pray for her. It was really nice to be able to pray for someone I personally care about beyond just being a fellow member of the Body. As I wrapped up my prayer I gave her a little sideways hug, which she reciprocated and held, along with laying her head on my shoulder. Well that was another church first. As we held that posture (for lack of a better word) for the next worship song, I was thinking how glad I was able to be here for her. At least I assume I was lending her support. We are very roughly in similar relationship situation. As I stood there I realized she was lending me support as well and maybe that was the end of it, but I’m pretty sure it was mutual whether we both knew it or not. I was comforted by the peace of sharing this moment of worship with a beautiful, inside and out, woman. It really was a time of tranquility as my mind did not wander to sadness thinking of how much I want Lauren to be at my side during worship nor did my mind spin some euphoric flight of fancy of having a pretty girl in my grip.
The remainder of the worship time was quite good as it has been for me the last few weeks. Afterwards, I followed Monica as she bounced around saying goodbye to and introducing me to her Shark Club family not to mention I got to take photographs for her. So we broke tacos together and hung out with her fellow volunteers for a while. I helped breakdown a bit and headed home. It was a very cool day at church. I have sympathy for those that called The Shark Club home as it definitely was a community. Something that the services at Fisher are not, a victim of RH’s success, for which we have LifeGroups.
Monica and Me, photo by Dale Quinio.
