Top Ten Things to Do When You Lose Electricity During A Worship Service

10. Have a preacher with a big mouth who can preach both sermons without a microphone.

9. Have a great worship minister with a battery operated keyboard.

8. Use Bongo drums instead of electric drums.

7. Have battery operated amps for the electric guitars.

6. Cook breakfast before power goes off, and cook clam chowder for the Ministry Fair after power comes back on.

5. Have Sunday School teachers with night vision goggles.

4. Have Sunday School teachers who combine classes or move to different rooms.

3. Use hymnbooks and songs sheets instead of Power Point.

2. Use a “low tech” lapel microphone for the preacher (Dixie cup and a battery, thanks to Marcus Storey for some comic relief.)

And the # 1 thing you have to have when you loose electricity during your worship services…

1. Flashlights in the bathrooms, thanks to quick thinking by Rex Putman!

We had fun Sunday morning. Inconvenience gave way to good attitudes when our power went off during my sermon in the first service and came back on during my sermon in the second service (do you think the power company is trying to tell me something?).

We had a few days advance notice, so that was helpful. It was just as helpful that everyone had a good sense of humor about things, and we had a great day especially as Vern, our battery operated guitar player, came forward and transferred his membership to our church!. Praise the Lord.

The apostle Peter reminded the church to already be ready with an answer when we are asked about our faith (I Peter 3:15) Paul told his apprentice, Timothy, to be ready to preach the gospel “in season and out of season.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

Be prepared and be flexible, ready for anything. It’s great advice for a church without electricity, and it’s even greater advice for all of us as Christians. We can rely on Christ’s power to get us through dark times. If we trust God, and work together, great things can happen.

Even greater than flashlights in bathrooms!

Cinderella Lawnmower

If the shoe fits, put it on fast, because the other one might disappear!

I was getting ready to mow the lawn the other day. We have a box on our back deck with outside shoes. I used to keep an old pair of sneakers in there, just to wear when I mow the lawn. They are old, grass stained and somewhat dorky looking, so I don’t wear them in public, just to do lawn work. I say I used to have them because one sneaker has been missing for most of the summer. Each time I’ve mowed the lawn, I go through the following shoe ritual. I find the one sneaker on the top of the pile. I dig through the rest of the snow boots, rubber boots and about 10 pairs of Angie’s shoe collection overflow. The missing sneaker was nowhere to be found. I end up wearing an old pair of hiking boots for my lawn mowing mission.

On this day, I decide to forgo the missing sneaker scenario, get the hiking boots, and get the job done. This is because I slept in, messed around and it is now 94 degrees outside. I find one hiking boot, emptied the box (I’m pretty good at doing this by now) and behold, there was only one boot! Hopping on one foot while mowing the lawn requires more coordination than I’m capable of. Besides, it might look weird to the neighbors. I was forced to make a decision only a man could make. I looked at my hiking boot, and my one faithful sneaker. The sneaker fit on my left foot and my hiking boot on my right foot. The women of my house were otherwise occupied, so I wore a sneaker on one foot, a hiking boot on the other foot, and I was all set to conquer my lawn.

As the lawnmower and me were making a lap around the landscape, I glanced under one of the trees in my backyard. There was my missing hiking boot (the one that wasn’t currently on my foot)! How in the world did it get across my back yard? I had two theories:
1. The boot got in a fight with the other shoes in the box and decided to stage a walk out (or hike out).
2. A sneaky neighbor dog with too much time on its paws decided to play “Let’s hide the hiking boot.” I’m still waiting for forensic evidence to come back, or maybe I’ve been watching way too much CSI.

I wondered all this as I snagged the boot, tossed it back on the shoe pile, and finished the lawn. A mystery solved, and my dandelions were cut down. Not bad for an afternoons work.

Next, I decided to tackle our overrun blackberry bush which is pretty ambitious for an overheated fat guy in 90 plus degree weather. I went out our back fence behind our property. Two housing developments are getting married back there, so the field is now housing plots with streets. The developer removed most of the blackberries except for the ones behind my back fence. As I hacked and plodded through the underbrush, I saw it, practically hidden by the killer blackberry vines.

My missing tennis shoe! I doubt if my neighbor dog is that ambitious, so I’m sure there is a renegade gang of shoe snatchers lurking in our suburb. I’ll have to check the FBI website.

In Luke 15, Jesus told a parable of a missing tennis shoe and a missing hiking boot. Well, actually, He told about a lost sheep, a coin and a lost son, all of whom are worth more than my tennis shoe and hiking boot. But the truth is the same. There is joy in finding lost stuff. There is greater joy in finding lost people.

If we take the time to look around, there are lost people all around us—folks that have been coming to church and have missed a Sunday or two, or five. We see people sitting in the pews that look sad or lonely, or are hurting. There are people missing from our small groups. We may not know why they are lost; the important thing is finding them, connecting them and reconnecting them to the Lord and His people. It’s all of our jobs to seek the save the lost. If we work together, it’s amazing who we may find.
And beware of sneaky neighbor dogs.