When Life Gives You Tornadoes…

When life gives you tornadoes, you make… hmmm?    …a last minute relocation of  your Sunday services!

As many of you heard, we had a pretty stormy Saturday night (& figuratively speaking a stormy Sunday morning).  When I came home Saturday evening, I had some pretty huge branches down all around my yard.  But I did not expect to be woken up early Sunday morning with a phone call:  “Uhh, Pastor Peter, Northwestern says that their electricity is totally out, what should we do?”

Of course, this is not an easy decision.  After all, most facility changes can easily cost us five, even ten thousand dollars… especially a last minute one.  Even worse, we see a good number of conversions on any given Sunday, so… the spiritual implications of canceling our services can weigh pretty heavily on me.

To make matters worse,  no one likes to make big business decisions in their pajamas (actually, I take that back)…but it’s still pretty disconcerting to make decisions before your alarm clock is supposed to go off!  Yet after a dream-like set of conversations, our dynamic volunteer teams put a plan into effect that was pretty bold:  In less than 90 minutes, we’re going to totally relocate our church services to a completely different location… AND, we’re going to do it in such a way that we won’t lose any attenders in the process. (But is that even possible?)

Of course, if you know anything about our service logistics, nothing is as simple as it seems.  Children’s ministry is a complex thing to set up.  Signage for a campus of around 1000 people is also nothing to snooze at.  But multi-site video technology adds a whole new layer of complication.

Yet, our volunteers gushed out a tsunami of text instructions that made me gasp.   And even more surprising, our attendance didn’t really miss a beat (which is shocking, under the last minute circumstances).

This tells me one of two things:  either (A). All of you sleep with your cells phones tucked under your pillow.  Or, (B). We have a pretty stinkin’ amazing group of interns who mobilized a great game-plan (& it’s probably both…  you little cell-phone-snugglers!)

But seriously…  God’s grace really came through the gifts of our people.  And I’m proud of you.  So here’s to you Mr. & Mrs Substance Volunteer!  You guys are the real deal!  And I look forward to troubleshooting even greater kingdom problems in this city.  So when life gives you tornadoes… you unleash our unstoppable force of volunteers!  Love you guys!