For Wilshire Baptist Church
I only went to Sweet Temptations twice, but both times changed my life. It wasn’t the place; it was the people. It’s always the people.
Sweet Temptations was an intimate cafe and bakery near Skillman and Audelia in Northeast Dallas. It was popular with the Lake Highlands crowd, and while I’ve never lived in Lake Highlands, I heard good things about it from people at Wilshire who lived up that way. So, I was interested in checking it out sometime in 2004 when I was invited to a small lunch there to meet Doug Haney, the man who was to be Wilshire’s new minister of music. I don’t recall if he was prospective or already called at that time, but I was there representing Wilshire’s ushers.
I don’t recall what we ate or the specifics of the lunchtime conversation, but I do remember the feeling: It was friendly and relaxed as was Doug’s way. Amazingly, and thankfully, Doug is still that way all these many years later. Nineteen years at Wilshire didn’t change him in that regard, but he sure changed us. He brought a variety of genres of music to Wilshire and set into our collective DNA that real music and substantial music is as important to worship as scripture, prayer and preaching.
My second visit to Sweet Temptations was in January 2009 when LeAnn and I shared a same-week birthday dinner there. LeAnn suggested the location. It was our first time to spend time together, and again I don’t recall what we ate, but the service was slow and we filled the gaps with a long and winding conversation that ultimately kicked off the life we are living together today. We never got back to Sweet Temptations before it closed in 2010, but on the 10th anniversary of that dinner, LeAnn made her version of their signature Lake Highlands Rock Cake and we ate it sitting on the curb in front of the locked front doors.
There’s a sweet temptation in life to want to keep things as they are. We like the status quo, especially if it is familiar and comfortable and doesn’t upset our routines or challenge our perspectives. But keeping the status quo is like trying to keep a china plate spinning on the tip of a stick. It can’t be kept going forever and it’s exhausting to try. Life changes all around us and we are forced to change with it. The changes come in too many varieties to list and from too many directions to mitigate. All we can do – all I can do – is trust God with it all. There’s plenty of theological debate over whether God changes over time, but there’s no doubting that God is in charge of it all and will have the final say. There’s no change in that, so who better to stay close to than God when the changes seem more than we can handle.
And so Doug has retired and is moving away. We’ll miss his friendship and his leadership in worship, and we know that our worship will change with the coming of someone new. But Wilshire will still be the place I want to be because of the people that make it Wilshire.
LeAnn and I have experienced a lot of change together in the years since that first dinner, and no doubt there will be plenty more. Sweet Temptations is long gone, but we have found new favorite restaurants together, like Garland’s Main Street Café. The food is always wonderful, but the best thing about Main Street is Tammy, the delightfully spirited owner. When I’m sitting across the table from LeAnn and Tammy is breezing by with great food and conversation, there’s no better place to be.