It wasn’t quite the end of the world, but I sure thought I heard the hoof beats of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It was very early on a Sunday morning that I got the word that somebody had driven their truck into an electrical pole near the church, and that all the power in the church was going to be out for hours. This wasn’t just any Sunday morning. This was Mother’s Day, the third most widely attended Sunday of the year for many churches.
So what to do? Well, for the first service we tried to make the best of it. We worshiped the old fashioned way, with nothing plugged in. The morning sunlight poured in from the beautiful windows. People fanned with their worship bulletins. I thought about changing my sermon topic to “Hell,” but didn’t! The doors were propped open. With no PA system, I had to try to preach like they did back in 1928 when the church was built.
Our worship team played all acoustically. No one complained about the conditions. Everyone pulled together. It was a memorable worship service for many of us.
The Entergy workers really worked hard at restoring power and by the time that we began the second service of the day, the electricity was flowing once again. Air conditioning, PA, lights. It was all back. But those in the second service don’t know what they missed.
That early “unplugged” service reminded me of something pretty important. It’s not about the lights or the AC or the sound system. But it is about power, the kind of power that really counts. The power that inwardly comes to us through Christ. The power of the Holy Spirit.