Thoughts on cancelling church

Leadership, at times, comes with moments of very hard decisions. 10:30pm last night was one of those moments. I sat in the church parking lot, it was pitch black, and I prayed that the electricity would be restored to the grid that Bethel is on (south end of Tyler). Well, the lights didn't come on, so I prayed for wisdom. I called my elders and laid out the scenario, and by the end of the 5th call, we were all in agreement that since there was no guarantee of electricity, canceling our Sunday morning services was what we needed to do.

Now, I know what you are thinking... I was thinking the same thing. "Electricity is a fairly new invention in the scheme of things and Christians have gathered for 2000 years - most of that time without electricity." That is a true statement. The problem for us is that we have a worship room that does not have much natural lighting and no air circulation. Most of our classrooms do not have much natural light and the bathrooms are pitch black. We have a ton of children on our campus on a Sunday morning and a campus full of people and no electricity is not something we have a contingency plan for... yet!

We got the word out last night, and it traveled fast (amazing how fast... ). I met some elders and staff up at the church about 8:00 am this morning and we sat at the entrance of the property with donuts to welcome and then turn away those that did not get the message. "Sorry... we have not had electricity since about 3pm yesterday, actually, it has just come back on, but we had to make a call. Wish we would have known..." I said that too many times this morning. Lots of visitors. Many people that are new and aren't yet on the weekly E-News list. And the few people that don't wake up and immediately check their email, facebook and twitter accounts while watching tv (who are these people?).

I hated how the morning felt. I hated not gathering with the church. I missed worship. I missed preaching. I missed being with my friends. I missed meeting new people (although, I did get to meet some new people) and getting to know some others even more. It felt weird this morning. And the great thing about the weird feeling was that it wasn't from guilt or some legalistic duty of "having to be at church." It felt weird because I genuinly missed it. I genuinly longed for it. There is something mysterious and soul nourishing about corporate worship that doesn't take place anywhere else. It is not the only place or time to worship. It is not the only place of mystery in the Christian life. And the church is by no means a building or an hour. But there is a reason that the writer of Hebrews says "do not neglect to meet together... but encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:25). The writer knows that there is something we need that we only find in corporate gathering.

I say that carefully... I am the guy who preaches. I also think that the preaching/teaching ministry of the church is very important. But, it is not about me. It never is... God makes sure of that. But, there is something about faithfulness to God's Word. It transcends the preacher/teacher. It transcends the worship leader. I believe it transcends our understanding many times. It is not uncommon that someone will comment on a something in a sermon that I did not say. The Holy Spirit took His word and illuminated it in a way that transcended all the human effort of the morning. I love that. I am thankful for that. I pray for that every week.

So, if you are from Bethel and reading this - I missed you. If you are not from Bethel - don't neglect to meet together... with whoever you meet with. It is vitally important.

This week we are going to begin talking about our "contingency plan," in the case of power outage. We might call it, "Church in Box" (or something... help me with a name!) - It is a morning of corporate worship in its simpliest form and needs nothing other than people. I don't know what it will look like yet, but I am praying that God would make that clear to us. So, the next time we are without power or some other "obstacle"... we will be prepared.