Rained Out

Yesterday we had planned to have an outdoor service at St. Andrews UMC. They had been forecasting rain all week and I had been watching the projections each day trying to figure just when the rain would hit. At my last check the rain was to arrive in the afternoon. We had our window of opportunity.

When Joanne and I got to the church the clouds were ominous and the wind was picking up. Everyone was waiting outside the church to see what we were going to do. We decided to give it a shot and everyone ran to their cars and trucks to get their lawn chairs out. Someone grabbed a podium from inside for me to use. We set up out in the grass and started service.

The wind was gusting and I had to clip my notes to the podium to keep them from sailing away. We got through the announcements, call to worship, morning prayer, and the offering. We had forgotten the offering plate, so we used Billy Wyatt's baseball cap for the collection. Then the drops started falling. I said let's get inside and everyone grabbed their chairs.

This Sunday's message was on Pentecost and how the fresh air of the Holy Spirit blew into the upper room. When we stepped into the church from the gusting wind outside there was a stillness in the air. We hadn't turned on the AC since we were going to be outside. We could here the wind blowing outside. It was as if we had been given a real life example of how the mighty gust of wind would have felt coming into the still, stale air of the upper room.

After the service we still had our picnic lunch, only we were in the fellowship hall. Even with the weather everyone enjoyed the day and wants to do it again. Besides we never got to play the adults vs the youth volleyball game.