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STARS    5'?m2f Ministry, discouragement, failure, discipleship

(optional light cue: dim to 50%, brighter light spills through
door at exit)

LIZ -- (enters disgusted) That's it. I give up.

AMY -- (follows) Liz, wait. Where are you going?

LIZ -- I quit. I'm done.

AMY -- You're done.

LIZ -- Yes.

AMY -- Does that mean you're not going to help me clean up? 

LIZ -- No, I mean, I'm done. I'm no longer going to serve in 
ministry.

AMY -- You're just going to quit?

LIZ -- Yes.

AMY -- Everything?

LIZ -- Don't tell me you're not considering calling it quits.

AMY -- (turns to audience, sighs, looks up) The sky is really 
clear tonight.... Look at how bright the stars are tonight.... 
Do you know how many stars there are in the universe?

LIZ -- I know what you're doing.

AMY -- What's that?

LIZ -- You're trying to take my mind off of this... this
miserable failure! (points to exit)

AMY -- Well, actually, I'm not.

LIZ -- Then, what are you up to?

AMY -- I'm admiring the universe.

LIZ -- I think you've snapped a twig. We've just had a
monumental failure and all you can talk about is stars?!

AMY -- Look at all those stars. They're out of our reach. They
don't seem to be very useful to us. They're not even bright
enough to read by. Yet, God made trillions of them. Did you know
that there's more than a trillion trillion stars out there?

LIZ -- So, God wasted the stars just like he wasted this event.
I just wish you'd learned this lesson BEFORE we wasted our time, 
money and energy on this event.

AMY -- You don't really think it was wasted, do you?

LIZ -- What do you call it? God wasted four weeks of our time,
He wasted all that food, all the paper and ink for the handouts
and about fifty bucks of our money!

AMY -- Listen, Liz, is there any doubt in your mind that this
was the project that God wanted us to do?

LIZ -- No. That's what's got me so frustrated. You and I prayed
about it. We both came up with the same idea at the same time.
We cleared it with the pastors, we got several confirmations
from relatives and friends. There was absolutely no reason to
doubt that we would succeed.

AMY -- Maybe we did succeed.

LIZ -- If I didn't know better, I'd say that maybe you need your
head examined.

AMY -- No, listen. For years scientists kept saying "surely with
all these stars in the universe there's got to be life on more
than just one planet." But the fact is, now that we've measured
the universe for the first time, we know that all these stars 
and galaxies were needed to create life on just one planet.

LIZ -- And that has to do with our failure... how?

AMY -- Well, it turns out that the purpose of many of those
stars out there was to act as ovens for baking the elements that
could later be used to create life on earth.

LIZ -- You still haven't answered my question.

AMY -- I'm saying that to us, all the stars look like nice
places to create life. But to God, most stars are only useful
for preparation for life.

LIZ -- Is this your way of saying that God INTENDED for this
event to flop?

AMY -- I'm saying that maybe the intended outcome of this event
had nothing to do with how many people attended.

LIZ -- What else could there be?

AMY -- Maybe events are like stars. Maybe God intended for this
event to be preparation for something more important.

LIZ -- Preparation.

AMY -- Yes.

LIZ -- Preparation... for what?

AMY -- I don't know. Did ANY good come from this event?

LIZ -- No.

AMY -- Come on.

LIZ -- Alright. I suppose I'm better at getting organized than I
was before.

AMY -- And we worked together pretty well, don't you think?

LIZ -- Yeah, I guess we did, considering the pressure we were
under. Actually, we were like a well-oiled machine, don't you
think?

AMY -- Organization, cooperation... what else?

LIZ -- I thought our presentation would have been very
informative.

AMY -- And persuasive.

LIZ -- If I had to do it again, I...

AMY -- What's the matter?

LIZ -- I was just going to say that if I had to do it again, I
would have added some things and eliminated some things. But we
were so far along on our preparations, there was a point where
we had to stop making changes in order to finish. (snaps
fingers) That's it!

AMY -- What's it?

LIZ -- God didn't care how many people came to this event. He
was interested in developing US. The next time someone suggests 
an event like this, we're really going to be ready!

AMY -- We'll definitely know what not to waste time on.

LIZ -- You know what else we're better at?

AMY -- What's that?

LIZ -- We're much better at obeying the Lord's leading. If we
can be trusted to finish a flop (points) like this, we can be
trusted to finish any project the Lord throws our way.

AMY -- Speaking of finishing, (exiting) do I have to clean up by
myself?

LIZ -- (follows) Now, how useful would I be to God if I didn't
finish what I started?

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