Building LGBTQ-friendly community: Live Q&A with CenterPeace founder Sally Gary

hmm well hello welcome to geeky Justin live coming to you once again from Orlando Florida home of talking mice and swarming love bugs I'm Justin Lee and with me today is Sally Gary down in Dallas Texas down I don't know why I say down in Dallas Texas you're west of me we're parallel yeah I think I'm so used to when I lived in North Carolina and you know Texas was was south but still southwest so yeah Sally is the founder and director of center piece that's piece PE a seee centerpiece for those who are listening on the podcast Sally welcome to the show thanks for being here oh thank you for having me Justin this is exciting I am so glad to get to see you when I talked to you for for starters but to be able to have this conversation with everybody is wonderful so thanks well I'm excited to have this as well we're gonna talk some today about community which feels like a very important topic right now I I know so many people who are really longing for a community of their own people who feel like they don't have community and and and finding that community at a time that so many of us feel isolated I did some weeks back Facebook live chats that was you know where I didn't have a guest where we we just sort of talked about how so many of us struggle to find a place to have community and so when you and I were talking about getting ready for this show and and you were talking about your ideas about community and stuff that you've done to build community oh it's like yeah this is exactly what we need to talk about so I want to kind of acknowledge before we even jump into the into the show that there's a kind of awkwardness in having a conversation a public conversation where you hopefully smile some and laugh and and have a good time immediately following a tragedy this is you know I as as many of you know Rachel held Evans who passed away recently was a good friend of mine a good friend of I know other many other folks who are watching an inspiration to many others who didn't know her personally a lot of us are still very much grieving I'm still very much up and down emotionally and last week rather than do the show that I had planned I said a few words about her and did a little kind of thing in memory of her and leading up to this conversation I've been struggling with how do I not forever going forward you know start with this sense of like I still feel really sad and I will probably feel really sad for a long time and yet somehow we have to give ourselves permission to continue to live and sometimes smile and laugh after losing someone who's very close to us even as we continue to feel sad and and that loss so I just need to say that upfront but yeah so I'm already seeing comments come in from people about community and I'm realizing I've organized my stuff here on the desk so that I cannot see the comments properly so let me move things around so let's start with this adam has this question adam says sally and justin assuming this is on topic for where you're heading tonight well it is now i wonder if you have some thoughts about creating community that avoids making Outsiders feel like outsiders i find that even with the best of intentions communities no matter how small can quickly move into tribes of the old and new any advice on creating a community that's malleable enough to be welcoming for old and new members alike as matter of fact I think I I do have a response to that I would love to hear it what are your thoughts well it's something that I'm I'm really passionate about right now that we started about a year and a half ago I had known people for years who had been wounded by church just wanted nothing to do with church and as a result really many of them wanted nothing to do with God and so there was just a complete disconnect from any anyone who is Christian and yet we're talking wonderful people who really desired fellowship with with other like-minded people and so I thought well this is not a time when you invite people to go to church as I grew up being told that's not gonna work and so what I knew did work and what I also learned in my upbringing from my family and my mom who was a wonderful cook is to invite people over for dinner and so that's exactly what we started doing and and we call it just dinner we started with three or four of my friends who came over for dinner in January of 2018 and I told them what my desire was they said well yeah we know people too who would love to come to something like that but I said it can't be overtly Christian it can't be overtly religious of any nature it just needs to be just dinner and so they agreed to invite their friends and the the next month we had double the size and the next month we had double the size and I kid you not this last week we had 40 people on my deck just in raucous laughter and conversation over ice cream we were really rebellious last week and we turned it into just ice cream for dinner so we had nothing else to eat and it was it was wonderful people kept coming to my door and I didn't even know who they were they were friends of friends of friends who had invited them to come we've got probably 80 to a hundred people now in our Facebook group there's a secret Facebook group that if you come to just dinner you are invited to join and it's it's absolutely amazing what that has done beyond saying a prayer before a meal that's literally looking at each other and saying thank you for being here and thank you God for this food we sit down and eat and and it's been wonderful to create relationships to create friendships that that are just really sweet I can't say enough good about just dinner here's the really neat thing - and then I'll shut up oh don't I love hearing about it when when we were at the conference I don't know if you heard this Justin because you were at our e3 conference last October we had some guys who did a breakout session on this concept and so other just dinner groups have started in other cities there's one in Birmingham Alabama there's there's one in Nashville Tennessee and I've talked about another one starting up we have one in Austin Texas we have another one in Fort Worth and we're thinking that really to to have fellowship we probably need to create another Dallas group as well so it doesn't get so big but on on Tuesday night last week you know you were talking about Rachel there were a lot of us there at that meeting who were grieving her loss and I just couldn't let the night pass without honoring her and so everybody set come lately silent you could have heard a pin drop as I was reading her chapter on Easter doubt in her book searching for Sunday it's my favorite and I had written yes at the bottom of that last paragraph she was important to all of us and so that's probably the most overtly Christian thing that we've done but it was because of Rachel that we could do that I I like that a lot mm-hmm I don't want to get yeah I like that a lot I think I know a lot of people right now are taking some small consolation and knowing that Rachel's work will continue to influence so many people for for so many years to come but that's such a wonderful concept this idea of just dinner I love that I think that's awesome some of our our viewers right now are commenting Shana says just dinner sounds fun Leslie says we need one in Houston Amy says a just dinner is brilliant Amy also says III rocked so we'll talk about III in a minute good since you since you mentioned that but yeah a lot of folks excited about about just dinner I the fact that it's grown like that to me says for one thing that you're creating a space that people feel comfortable in which i think is one of the things that too many churches are not doing these days unfortunately you know as somebody who grew up believing that the church should be the place that everybody can feel welcome it certainly feels today like the place that so many people feel least welcomed but also it speaks to me to this idea that so many people have this desperate need for and and don't know where to find it in our social media world it's like you can find online communities and online communities can be helpful in certain contexts for certain reasons but but online communities often fail to fill our deep need for for real connection and there's this real problem where folks are spending so much of their time online in not in communities but in social media landscapes that are based on this kind of shallow browsing of what everyone is saying but not going deeply on any one thing right that the two sit down in person and be together with people in person is so needed and I said when we had a conversation about this a few weeks ago this is one of the reasons that I started doing board game nights at my place concept yeah same concept because you know a game night forces people to get off their phones and actually engage in the in real the real world and I think if you pick the right games games that allow people to not just stay focused on the game but actually to interact with each other it can be an excuse for getting together whatever your Excuse is is you know oh yeah you made me think of my old Bunco group when I was when I was teaching at Abilene Christian yeah this makes me really old but you know if that the beauty of it it was this stupid dice rolling game that nobody really cared about but it was an excuse for us to get together at each other's homes and have dinner together there were only 12 women who did that we did it once a month and those are some of my dearest friends to this day just as we we spent that time together we were actually high rollers that's what it was high rollers yeah oh yeah I'm gonna move this light a little bit it's shining on me so too much I should have adjusted that better before we started so okay bunch of comments are coming in here I want to talk about III and centerpiece because we haven't even said what centerpieces for folks who aren't familiar with it but first since this question just came in let's deal with this Leslie wants to know how does one start one how do you start a just dinner how did you make that happen or how do you recognize people make that happen that's a great question you know for me I I had friends that that really wanted to participate in something like that they were very receptive to doing that and I I asked some friends who would sort of be a leadership team of making that happen and so one of the guys who was a part of that actually created a website and you can you can go to just dinner dotnet and and look at the other groups that are available and it certainly if you want to start one and you want to add it to that we can put you on there but it was just by word of mouth and people inviting their friends that's really all that it took we didn't you know we didn't make announcements we certainly didn't make announcements in churches per se but have we had people on ministry staff come to those dinners yes who are extremely supportive of what we're doing and just couldn't be a better presence I think I think that's what this feels a real need for is the the presence of another human being to just be with each other physically to be able to look in to someone's eyes to watch their facial expressions their body language and and know that you're being heard or not heard and and correct that as you need to that's that's just a really important part of communication and fellowship so yeah let's get some other group started that would be awesome if folks if you if you do start something like this I would love to hear and I'm sure Sally would love to hear about how it goes and the challenges that you encounter and I mean this would be cool to just like have a whole movement yeah spring from this okay oh my goodness is the questions keep coming in I feel like at some point I promise we'll talk about centerpiece and III and you've got a retreat coming up too that I want to talk about that's right but let me see if I can I this is a question this is a struggle that a lot of folks have I know and I appreciate Rob for bringing this up so let me ask you this Rob says I have lots of mental illness and I end up saying things wrong and it ends up causing me to be outcast so how do you get people to understand that you don't mean to hurt people so you don't become an outcast well one of the things I think that's a challenge in in groups as you try to form community is for folks who struggle for various reasons to integrate themselves socially they're trying to figure out how do I become part of this how do I do this without being outcast and also for groups that are are wanting everyone to be welcome sometimes they may not realize ways in which they cause people to feel outcast or or things that they should do differently to make sure folks feel included do you have any advice on that front yeah and and not knowing exactly where where Rob's coming from except that I've certainly been the person in the room who has stuck my foot in my mouth said the wrong thing at the wrong time asked an embarrassing question that I didn't mean to ask so what I have tried to do in my older years when I've learned better is to say look this is really new territory for me I I really don't know a lot about this I feel kind of awkward in this particular situation and so you're gonna have to help me is what I will generally say whether it's one person or a group of people to just be willing to express your own vulnerability and be authentic in that that that's where you are and that you may need a little coaching a little extra patience at times and I think it's important you know that's that's another thing for a leadership team of a group is to constantly be aware of folks who might not feel like they fit because that that is our number one desire is for you to feel comfortable and like you belong in this particular group of people and it's different every time so that's a challenge and sometimes you don't get it right and you have to ask forgiveness and and be willing to say I'm so sorry that happened and give us another shot let's try again but I think those are the ways that I'm learning that that that helps I love that advice both internally I mean because you're I think you're so right on about authenticity about that that openness that very often you know in any kind of situation I mean I know even like as a public speaker there are times where I've gone into a space where I'm just like really nervous and it helps a lot sometimes just to say well let me just say right off the bat I'm really nervous addressing this topic I'm scared and I you know and it it gets people on your side because the everybody knows what it's like to feel nervous to feel like an outcast or whatever and to acknowledge it allows people to go okay I understand now why this person is maybe behaving a little differently yeah but also that I love what you said about paying attention as leaders and that applies not only in this kind of like adjust dinner type environment but in any kind of group I remember years ago I was in a meeting with a lot of people sitting around a table it was oh I want to say maybe 30 or so people sitting around a table and having this conversation when you have that many people everybody's trying to say something and and you know and a lot of people were jumping in you know you have to kind of fight and jump in real quick before the next person jumps in and at one point in the conversation one of the women jumped in and said I just want to acknowledge that in the lasts you know 30 minutes or so only maybe one or two of the women around the table have contributed and almost all of the men around the table have contributed and and that was like that was the kind of thing that ideally everyone most especially the leadership but everyone should have been paying more attention to and I was embarrassed that as one of the men around the table I had not noticed sooner that that pattern was occurring and it was a wake-up call to me like and this was years and years ago that this happened but like ever since whenever I've been in a room I've tried to pay much better attention to like who's speaking and who's not and it's okay whether it's a formal business setting or whether it's a social gathering it's okay if not everybody's talking some people are more comfortable holding back but it's important to make sure that if somebody's not talking that it's because they're choosing not to talk and not because maybe they were socialized were brought up in a culture where you don't jump in and they're having trouble getting a word in or because they're uncomfortable for some reason and they're quiet because they're not feeling cared about you know and it's important to just check in yeah so oh my goodness okay so I there were other questions that I missed that I wanted I want to jump back to in a minute but first let's talk about centerpiece so for those who are just tuning in this is centerpiece pe AC e you founded this organization it's been around for a while what does centerpiece do why does it exist centerpiece exists because as a as a gay Christian I realized that having grown up in the church this was a conversation that I didn't get to have we desperately need it especially in my tribe I grew up in churches of christ and so i I knew that we were not having conversations about this topic and it wasn't a topic it wasn't an issue it was me and it was my friends and we had precious sweet good god-fearing families who had raised us to be precious sweet god-fearing disciples of Christ and we had no place to talk about our sexuality to ask questions as we were growing up what of this what is this feeling mean what what can I expect from that what does that look like for my life we couldn't do that and so centerpiece grew out of my own wrestling with all those questions internally and keeping that secret for a long long time I was I was 35 years old before I ever came out to anybody because I grew up in a world where it was extremely difficult to talk it was shameful I was taught that this was not a part of God's will for my life and so I had every reason to keep that secret and planned to keep it to my grave but I got to a point I was in law school at the time and you know law school will bring you to your knees anyway but wrestling with all of this internally I I couldn't keep up the facade anymore of having it all together and being so mixed up and so confused about Who I am who I was meant to be and I came out to a dear friend who received me like Jesus would fortunately and walked with me for the next few years in asking a lot of those questions my mom and dad entered into that conversation with me and that's been one of the greatest blessings of my life aside from them teaching me who Jesus is they're being a part of me and never turning their backs on me is the greatest thing they've ever done for me so that's how a centerpiece grew and what we do we do workshops for church leaders we call them peacemaker workshops so we'll come into a church on a weekend much like you do Justin and talk about how can we create a safe space for conversation so that our children are growing up in a place that allows them to ask anything to be able to talk about anything including their sexuality in addition to those workshops we do the big conference every other year called III to equip encourage and empower fellow Christians fellow lgbtq+ Christians to go back home and introduce this conversation and create safe space in their churches for people to come out for people to live a full life fully embraced fully affirmed by the the body of Christ in their locale that's that's what we try to do in that conference and you were a tremendous help last time we're gonna we're gonna kidnap you and bring you back to III and 2020 which can I announce the dates for the very first time please I got to break news I'm excited exactly we need a drumroll or something but I'm going out to my drum set in the garage October 22nd through the 24th of 2020 it will be in Dallas at the Highland Oaks Church of Christ again so we're looking forward to that in addition to those two teaching events that we do we do two retreats one is for parents called P sprints and you can go to our website centerpiece net and look under resources for parents and it will tell you about P sprints we're having our next one in July July 12th through the 14th in Texas that will be at the watchtower ranch it's between Fort Worth and Abilene and you can find that on our website as well the other retreat that's coming up that you're going to get to be a little bit of a part of I'm so happy that that's gonna work out May 31st through June the 2nd again at Watchtower ranch it's a beautiful space I know it doesn't sound beautiful when you say between Fort Worth and Abilene it's yes it's a cow pasture but it's a beautiful ranch and you'll have you'll have a really nice bedroom in your own bath and it's gonna be great I'm excited I'm looking forward to that so folks who want come to that so that's at the end of this this month into this month beginning of June yes folks who want to come to that where do they go to find out about all that you can go to the website again and look under tapestry and I didn't say this I just took it for granted it's for lgbtq+ Christians people who are single people who are in relationships all we care about is what what you want to get out of this for yourself spiritually and so if you have a significant other that you want to bring with you please bring them this is going to be a time for us to talk about what does it mean for me to be a disciple of Jesus as an lgbtq+ Christian so I'm really excited about it this is about the twelfth retreat that we've done and it's gonna be good that's awesome and the information on details logistics cost and all that stuff is on the website centerpiece net again e ta cee that's right you can actually register there on the website that's that's awesome so you know talking about community this idea of like building community what you've done with centerpiece is to create community and you talked about coming up in the Church of Christ and you're still connect like you know like you're having this you know one of the events you were talking about at the Church of Christ the Church of Christ for folks who are not familiar is a very theologically conservative denomination David who's watching says a Church of Christ remember with a drum set what a rebel so not to be confused with the United Church of Christ which is sort of on the opposite end theologically speaking so so centerpiece is not limited to the Church of Christ but your your roots in the Church of Christ have meant that you're working with and doing these these workshops that you're doing and these conferences and things in a in a space that a Christian space where this is still a very difficult conversation to have and we're having this conversation means trying to build community around some significant difference what we've sometimes called side a and side B folks coming from very different theological perspectives very different approaches to sexuality and gender how have you managed to make that work because I know a lot of folks have really struggled and have just written that off and said you know that these folks are never gonna never going to be able to be part of the same community yeah you know that's that's a great question and I would say short answer is by the grace of God because it's well it's just it's difficult at times I think for me I have a great love for my heritage I have a great love for those those roots that I have in churches of christ and the things that I was taught that are good the things that I learned about Jesus within a Church of Christ could I have learned those in other churches you better believe I could have but it just so happens that Sally learned them in a Church of Christ and so of course my heart is is drawn there you know it's the same thing if if the majority of your experiences are negative then it understandable that you would have real negative feelings toward any organization any structure any individual in your life but my experience although it was not without negatives I really want to focus on the positives because I feel there were far more positives about my experience in in developing my faith within that particular tradition then there were negatives and I think for me I don't know maybe we're going it on law school or doing a debate coach where you have to acknowledge two different arguments if you will this is not an argument this is my life and so that makes it extremely different it's your life and so the ways that we talk about our sexuality goes far beyond an argument or a position but I think some of us may have the ability to to hold both of those a little bit closer a little more tightly than others I think sometimes I can't say where I've read this but I've read that some of us are very black-and-white oriented and in the way that we think in the way that we process information and others of us can see the gray and it's not that one is better than the other it's just different and so perhaps I can see the gray a little more and I really do see where both sides are coming from you know it just I'll go back to just dinner again the other night we had people who are committed to a life of celibacy who are here we have people who are in same-sex marriages and they're a part of centerpiece they are always a part of centerpiece and that's not going to change because Jesus invites us all to the table if if we're founded on anything it's that truth and there's never going to be a time that we're not going to be focused on inviting more and more people to the table regardless regardless of where you are in your thinking I think and I think that's so so powerful and so important and something that that the church certainly needs and the fact that you it's interesting I wonder if one of the things that affects you and me both is that we both our positions and our understanding of things has changed as we've grown and wrestled to some of this stuff like we've gained more nuance and because I know at least I used to be much more black-and-white in my thinking about things and now it's not that I don't see black and white in terms of seeing that there are rights and wrongs but I like you said I understand more of what where people are coming from and it it frees me up I think to have more conversations with folks who disagree with me in different ways without making the disagreement front and center so somebody a Debbie says it is huge when Sally comes into the Church of Christ and the people here that she loves the church and I think that's so right I think there are a lot of folks who come from church spaces or other communities that are traditionally what folks might say non affirming and and and then they just they because that's been a toxic environment for them they want nothing to do with it and they and they may not understand why it's important to continue doing work in those spaces but there are lots of folks in those spaces and I think that's so vital so yeah oh good I was just going to say my heart is for the children who are growing up in those churches and and if we abandon those those children in those churches where where will they go churches right now who wouldn't have this conversation for love nor money in 10 years in 20 years it's going to be their children their grandchildren who come out to them and they're gonna need a place that they will be able to trust and that's gonna need to be a pretty solidly founded Christian space in order for them to feel safe in that and I care enough about those kids that I want to make sure that we continue that and I just can't see doing it any other way well I think you do it so incredibly well and I would recommend the center Peace Conference to absolutely anyone you know I mean particularly to Christians who either are LGBTQ or want to have better conversations about sexuality agender in in the church regardless of their their position whether they agree with me disagree with me I would say centerpiece is a good place for us to have these conversations and know that you are welcome in this space wherever you are as long as you're gonna be respectful of the other folks in this space I think you're doing that better than anybody I just I'm so impressed with centerpiece and what you're doing sandy says I was raised in a church of christ also and I admit it had more positives than negatives although I still struggle with the fear-based teachings or maybe that was my perspective as a more highly sensitive person I have a bit of resentments I need to heal or forgive and move on and that brings me out back to what you were saying at the beginning of this conversation talking about just dinner when you were saying that that is not a church space that is not a Christian well not a Christian space in that it's not overtly religious although certainly your Christianity influences how you have done this I would say um you you're intentionally creating spaces where folks who have been hurt by the church including folks who don't necessarily want anything to do with church for various reasons not not just because maybe they've been hurt but maybe because they just don't they don't believe it or you know whatever but a space where people can feel welcome I can imagine that there would be some Christians out there who would say well that's fine as long as you have a kind of ultimate agenda of of proselytizing folks like it's fine to have a space that doesn't feel too religious as long as eventually MIDI jump in it and and push people into now going to the church or net or you know pass out tracts after dinner or something like that I I've heard those kinds of things before I've been on the receiving end of those things from folks who assume that I'm not a Christian although I am and I obviously um in in the way I'm framing this question giving away that I think that that's not helpful approach now I'm not being very unbiased in my asking you this question but what would you say to those folks why do you think it's important to do this just just to have dinner well first I would say that I don't have cases of the postman track out and are you human won't be old enough to remember the postman track I don't know that one Oh oh it's hideous it's just absolutely hideous I read it when I was in the fifth grade and I scared the living daylights out of me and and I you know I I ended not doing anything I you know it was supposed to make you want to go get baptized right then and there I waited a year and when I was baptized it was out of was out of a deep love for Jesus and appreciation of what he had done I was 11 years old I'm with Sandy there is no place for fear you know scripture tells us that perfect love casts out all fear if we spent more time in first John 4 we learn a lot about how to get rid of those scare tactics because that's that's not who God is it's not how he relates to us nor wants to relate to us and I think that's the the bigger response is that perfect love casts out all fear that said our only agenda is to get to dessert we have just dinner and then we have just dessert and there the hurt you know I I know because I was raised I was raised with that thought you know always be prepared to give an answer always be be ready to share your faith and yes but the way I do that differs from person to person and when you have people who have been deeply hurt that's not at all where you begin you begin with dinner and conversation over a table and you share dessert and and you know what it may make us nervous it might make me nervous because you're not doing exactly what I was taught that you need to be doing in order to be right with God but what I've learned is that God is so much bigger than my very limited picture and understanding of him scripture tells us he will have mercy on whom he one to have mercy and so that's what I would say to the people who would doubt what really happens here or should happen here but it really is just dinner and just friendship so come see for yourselves Rene Rene has a laughing emoji and says dessert is my goal as well Jackie says I'm down for this gay agenda okay so in a world that that is where we're so isolated where we're sitting alone on our computers watching everybody else seem to have more fun than we're having where we have fear of missing out and we're connected but in shallow ways so that we're connected but disconnected you are working to create community through centerpiece and East III and the tapestry retreats and just dinner also in a world where there seems to be bad news all the time there's something bad going on in the world somewhere I one of the things you and I were talking about earlier today as we were kind of prepping to have this conversation was the need to find a way to to laugh and have a good time you were saying that what's it yeah I so - I should say to folks who are listening on the podcast what they cannot see here is it because the the way that we have is set up and Sally doesn't have earbuds so when I talk you can't hear her reaction but I can see her facial expression that she's waiting to see what I'm about to ask but yeah so so so you were telling me earlier that when you do Justin uh the other day when you did one that there was I think you described it as raucous laughs yeah oh yeah I I don't know what the neighbors thought which I love and and my backyards not that big but but it was it was just grati everybody was having a great time I I had when I was visiting my dad a couple weeks ago and I did a Facebook live with my dad I got to see some of my old friends in North Carolina where I used to live and we also got together and we did a game night and had some raucous laughter I think would be a good description as well and it's so good to have those moments in the a break from from the sad times and the and the bad news and whatever so I was gonna ask what what do you do besides just dinner to like give yourself some joy and and get a chance to laugh in life oh my goodness there I there I tell my go-to funny please that I watch I'm a big movie buff I love to go to movies and this is this is really I don't know I don't know what this is going to do to my reputation but I'll be I'll be completely open and honest here and tell you that Dumb and Dumber is still one of my favorite movies of all time followed closely by bridesmaids I know it's foul I I know so please don't write me and tell me how disappointed that you are in my movie choices but that scene in the bridal shop picking out bridesmaids dresses will forever be I can just think about it and and start laughing it's just funny I appreciate that you are willing to be that transparent because I have to confess to you that over the years there have been moments where I saw something online or or saw a movie or something and I thought this is so funny and this gives me joy but I dare not say so right because someone will judge me because yeah it's you know either it's not sophisticated enough or it has something inappropriate that someone doesn't approve of you know what and and that's so much pressure to put on ourselves so I appreciate that your yeah yeah I appreciate that you're willing to be so this is so upfront I have to confess to you I have not seen Dumb and Dumber I have seen bridesmaids Oh Justin maybe at the retreat I'm just saying I mean after hours kind of thing I okay all right I fit one of my one of my guilty pleasure movies as I think a number of people know is Scott Pilgrim vs. the world which is a movie that also has a number of moments that I'm sure you know a lot of my Christian friends would say well that is just not appropriate but it but it still makes me laugh and I just can't help it it you know although it's definitely a movie for a particular a particular audience it's got a lot of video game references and things that that are references to games I grew up with and so I know and I get the little references and they make me laugh and I know a friend of mine watched it and who did not have that same upbringing and was like I just don't understand this at all I don't this comes out of left field and this and I'm like no it's a reference to this game and if you played the game you would get it's a that was a Mega Man joke and that's the music from The Faerie The Legend of Zelda and you know so you made me think of another one that's it's not as foul but it's just downright stupid and that's Napoleon Dynamite oh yeah see and mine oh yeah I had a friend in high school who looked just like that guy I kid you not don't say it I won't say his name yeah definitely don't say snow and if you work in the yearbook from 1979 you'll see that kid oh dear okay so let's see I have a question from Adam and and we'll wrap up here in just a minute Adam says Justin deep theological question here what games do you find helpful for your game nights in keeping the game going while allowing for the people to still interact freely you know um that was not what I had planned to talk about tonight so I'll probably have to do another show where I talk more about about games or do a video YouTube video yeah yeah I you know what I will say to the to those who are watching whether you're whether you're watching in real time on Facebook or watching after the fact on YouTube I would love your comments you know who should I get on this show to talk about games I would love to do what I got to do some months back I was on a podcast called story men and they interviewed me about games and we we talked about games but I would love to interview somebody and like talk about games I'll give a really brief answer to Adam which is well gosh there's so many things I want to say I tend to go for more like social interaction types of games a lot of folks are familiar with the jack box party packs which are not a technically board games but jack box games often are really good at keeping people engaged I like games where you you have to like talk about or explain things games like Dixit which is fun or like catchphrase the kind of games where you're trying to get people to guess stuff like those are not great at like having conversation but they are good at getting people laughing and getting people to like engage as long as it's with the right group I think one of the things that's most important with a game night is to make sure that you choose a game that is a good fit for the group so like I really love hidden role games games like one night ultimate werewolf is one of my favorite games but I have friends who absolutely just get paralyzed by the idea of having to deceive people even in a game and I don't believe in lying to people in real life but in a game I will absolutely lie to you and say no I'm not the werewolf what are you talking about and if people never believe me even when I'm telling the truth I don't know what that says about me but but I won't pull those games out if I'm with friends who really don't enjoy this kind of game so you got to find the right game but we could talk about that more on another show do you do game night cyber Sally you know I haven't but I had a friend who had scheduled one we do things in between the monthly dinners and she had scheduled a game night and then ended up having to work but I I don't know what games she was planning I mean I'm old Justin all I have is is monopoly or risk you know risk is a great game I don't care what anybody says about it it's still a fantastic game it is you have to with with strategy games like risk though it's got to be also it's got to be the right people I think people know yeah people who are willing to like world domination if you like if you like a risk and want something a little more modern there's a game called small world that is kind of like more modern take on risk that plays faster where you can play as various fantasy races and stuff before we wrap up a JD who always has this question of whoever I have on the show wants to know if you're having pizza for dinner would you put pineapple on it yes in a heartbeat oh yes it's divine with pineapple on it yes that that is the correct answer yes [Laughter] well I think we are out of time but I want to once again give people a chance to get connected with you and with your work find out all the stuff that you're doing and go to e3 and go to the tapestry thing that's at the end of this month and all of that stuff and so that is again centerpiece pe AC e dot Nets yes centerpiece dotnet if they want to if they want to get in touch with you personally can they do that through the website yeah or they can email me at Sally at centerpiece net okay awesome and we're social media Facebook Twitter Instagram so you can follow us on there if you want that's awesome also last minute comment that just came in that I need to pull up here which is from Cheryl who suggests have a Lego night with a theme people have to build something yeah that's a great yeah I like this people have to build something to go with the theme it's fun to have people work in groups of two or three and then share what they built just dinner and dessert and Legos that's great I like that I've never thought of that before anybody who has other ideas let us know and maybe we can talk about them on a future show Sally it is wonderful to have you it is one that have you - thank you so much for being here I'm just so grateful for your presence in the world thank you thanks everybody for a watching just a reminder that this is again this is also a podcast so you can find all the past episodes in audio form at geek by searching geeky justin live in itunes the last couple of episodes weren't up but are about to be up the reason for that is that I ran out of bandwidth on my old website so I've been having to transfer everything over the new website make sure it's all working but those should be up this week as well as the YouTube versions of those episodes special thanks to my gold star patrons who make it possible to do all the work that makes this show that's Liz Tom Christopher Carol Bruce John Larry and Terry and thanks to all the other patrons that I have who make this possible you can find out more about that at patreon.com slash geeky justin everyone thanks for tuning in thanks to Sally and have a wonderful week be excellent to each other and don't forget the nuanced good night everybody

Channel: GeekyJustin

Views: 1,363

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: GeekyJustin, LGBT, LGBTQ, gay, Christian, community, Just Dinner, CenterPeace, Tapestry, Sally Gary

Id: rA_VPnmaIJs

Length: 58min 20sec (3500 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019