This morning had to be one of the craziest Sundays in my nine years of pastoring. I knew the snow, all three inches of it, would seriously affect the psychology of people coming to church. It definitely threw a wrench in things. I felt like one of the three little pigs walking to church. The wind was huffing and puffing and trying to blow me down! I was like "slow-motion man" walking into the wind. What a Sunday to launch a new service @ Union.
To add to the chaos, Pastor Joel, our Point Pastor @ Ballston was stuck in Boston because of a canceled flight. Pastor Josh was leading our missions team in California that is helping Pathway Church get off the ground. So Pastor Dave had to play point @ Ballston. He was sick as a dog! He threw up three times last night. Needless to say, our team was hurtin for certain!
To top things off, Union Station was evacuated about ten minutes into my message in the 9:30 service! When it snows it blizzards! There was a little bit of panic and it was absolutely freezing outside. The evacuation meant we didn't have a tape to send to Ballston! I finally got a hold of Pastor of Dave and they had one old tape there--a message from October 31. How ironic. I talked about "planning for the future" and Ballston was living in the past :) But what can you do! The best laid plans of mice and men fell apart.
We ended up canceling the rest of our 9:30 and switched the order of service in the 10:30 so I could preach live in both the 10:30 and 11:00. It was sort of weird, the 11:00 was expecting a video so I apologized for being live! We made it through the 10:30, but the 11:00 was crazy! We actually had to get security to have a person removed from the service! They wouldn't stop talking and we have a rule of thumb--if someone is compromising everyone else's experience then they need to be removed. Turns out he was drunk. I hope he comes back when he's sober!
I can't remember a Sunday morning that had more crazy things happen! The combination of weather conditions, evacuation, missing staff, and disruption made for quite a day! Not much can surprise you after all of that. We're usually prepared for one or two unexpected contingencies, but not three or four! Praise God that everything worked out ok! The services were great despite everything that happened.
One of my favorite mental pictures in Scripture is Genesis 1:2. The earth was formless and void and the Spirit was hovering over the chaos. The Holy Spirit loves hovering over chaos. He was definitely hovering over NCC today!
To add to the chaos, Pastor Joel, our Point Pastor @ Ballston was stuck in Boston because of a canceled flight. Pastor Josh was leading our missions team in California that is helping Pathway Church get off the ground. So Pastor Dave had to play point @ Ballston. He was sick as a dog! He threw up three times last night. Needless to say, our team was hurtin for certain!
To top things off, Union Station was evacuated about ten minutes into my message in the 9:30 service! When it snows it blizzards! There was a little bit of panic and it was absolutely freezing outside. The evacuation meant we didn't have a tape to send to Ballston! I finally got a hold of Pastor of Dave and they had one old tape there--a message from October 31. How ironic. I talked about "planning for the future" and Ballston was living in the past :) But what can you do! The best laid plans of mice and men fell apart.
We ended up canceling the rest of our 9:30 and switched the order of service in the 10:30 so I could preach live in both the 10:30 and 11:00. It was sort of weird, the 11:00 was expecting a video so I apologized for being live! We made it through the 10:30, but the 11:00 was crazy! We actually had to get security to have a person removed from the service! They wouldn't stop talking and we have a rule of thumb--if someone is compromising everyone else's experience then they need to be removed. Turns out he was drunk. I hope he comes back when he's sober!
I can't remember a Sunday morning that had more crazy things happen! The combination of weather conditions, evacuation, missing staff, and disruption made for quite a day! Not much can surprise you after all of that. We're usually prepared for one or two unexpected contingencies, but not three or four! Praise God that everything worked out ok! The services were great despite everything that happened.
One of my favorite mental pictures in Scripture is Genesis 1:2. The earth was formless and void and the Spirit was hovering over the chaos. The Holy Spirit loves hovering over chaos. He was definitely hovering over NCC today!
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