Last Sunday we showed up to the school an hour and a half before our Gathering started only to discover that we didn't have power. The storms that came through on Friday left many homes and buildings without power. The school had a generator back up but it was only enough power to flush a few toilets and turn on a couple lights. I was so proud of the resilient attitude of our church. We looked things over and quickly reassessed what our Gathering would entail for the day. Instead of focusing on what we didn't have we got pretty excited about what did have.
1. We had a beautiful day.
2. We had an overhang outdoors that would hold everyone and protect us from the direct sunlight.
3. We still had use of the restrooms.
4. We had a wonderful playground on the other side of the school for the kids to play on after their lesson.
5. We have portable chairs, and tables that we could just move outside.
6. We have an incredibly gifted and flexible worship team that was able to put together an acoustic set on the fly. They had to come up with songs that were a little more familiar from their original set list. Then Our drummer realized that he had some paint buckets in his car (which sounded really cool). The custodian allowed us to use an acoustic piano that was on rollers in the music room. We had an acoustic guitar and singers with great hearts and voices.
7. We had a children's ministry that was able to adapt and still make things run with excellence. I heard one of our kids say, this was the best Sunday ever, I wish we could do this every week.
8. We had a Gathering that was full of people that saw this as an opportunity rather than an obstacle and they were grateful for the opportunity to still gather for worship.
9. We had prayer. Prior to our Gathering many of us prayed and thanked God for this opportunity. We asked that He would be our focus and that He would still bring the people.
Afterwards I had so many people comment on what an incredible experience it was. Some even asked if we could do that more often! The presence of God was evident and it was so simple and different. I was reminded at how often I seem to put God in a box and expect Him to work according to MY plans, MY comfort zones and MY traditions. As if to say God can't work outside the lines that I've drawn in the sand. In reality God doesn't need for me to figure everything out for Him, all He needs from me is an open heart!
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