As church planters, there are many unexpected things we try to prepare for and troubleshoot before they happen on a Sunday morning. For example, volunteers not showing up in the children's ministry or the sound system not cooperating. But we had a first a few weeks ago. Six inches of snow and a town unprepared.
Many natives have told me they do not anticipate snow season being over here until after Easter Sunday but apparently someone forgot to tell the city snow crew that sage bit of advice. While out running errands the week before our unexpected snow storm, I drove by the "snowplow barn" and they had already taken the snowshovels off the front of the trucks. Whoops!
Needless to say, we woke up Sunday morning to a blanket of white snow and an unplowed roads. It took Mike a good 45 minutes to just get out of our driveway. And our snowblower would not work because the snow was too wet and heavy. We ended up arriving at the school 30 minutes late for setup because the roads were treacherous. Though it really did not matter because the school had just begun clearing their parking lot. We could not even get our trailer up to the door to unload!
At this point, I was really questioning why we were even attempting to have church that morning. But most of our set-up crew had already arrived and the consensus of the group was to forge ahead. So we did! Due to such a late start (we could not get into the trailer until an hour before worship began), we decided to do a much more intimate, stripped-down Sunday morning. We only pulled out the screen and the projector leaving the sound equipment and children's ministry supplies still packed away inside the trailer. I quickly called another mom and asked her to grab a few toys, some crayons and some coloring books before she left the house. Figured something for the kids was better than nothing at this point!
You know what was so crazy, that morning ended up being one of the coolest Sundays yet. Mike ended up preaching because we did not have the DVD of the sermon, Jarrett did an acoustic set for worship and the kids set up camp in the back of the gym on a PE mat and were amazingly well behaved. Oh and 3/4 of our regular attenders showed up!
I was so humbled by the time we had cleaned up and headed home for the afternoon. I was not sure if the morning was worth pulling together but God clearly showed me that He is able to accomplish his purpose no matter the unexpected situations that come our way.
