Let there be Dark!

Last night God gave us darkness at church - huh???

Janice, who usually runs the Wednesday night Bible Study, is out of town for the school holiday and asked me to show a video last night. She and I went to some place that rents out really cheap Christian videos and got a few last week. I reviewed several - some were really lame - 70's and well, 70's should say it all. Anyway, there was one from the 80's done by Billy Graham's organization and it was okay, so that was the one I was going to show last night.

During the middle of worship team practice, we realized the power was out in the church (funny how you notice that when you go to switch on the lights and nothing happens). We tried to muddle through on a few songs, but it got too dark to see the words, so we gave up, had prayer and went to prayer meeting. Prayer meeting was pretty cool, we had a couple of candles on the table and prayed in the darkness. I am continually warmed by the fact that we almost always have about a dozen folks there for prayer each Wednesday night. Its a different group each week, but we carry on.

After prayer, everyone went to the hall for the bread and tea. The youth who usually show up in time for the food and then stay for Bible Study were there in force. Cheryl and I were asking ourselves and each other, what were we going to do with no power? no video, so what to do? We had people there and didn't just want to send them away. We tossed around a few ideas and came up with one that we were going to do, but then decided not too. So this is what we did...

We had everyone gather their chairs in a circle around the heater. Then we lit more candles and had about 8 candles sitting on the floor in the middle of the circle. We started with a few songs and then I asked people to share something God was doing in their lives that they wanted to praise God for and share with the people around them. Several people shared - it was really neat to sit together around the circle and hear how God has blessed people. After that, Cheryl read from the DC Talk Jesus Freaks Devotional - a selection about the Apostle John and then one about a Christian in Vietnam who stayed in prison so he could continue to share Jesus with the other prisoners. Cheryl closed us in prayer and then we all went home.

God blessed us with no power - I'm pretty sure that the people living in the community around the church didn't really see last nights power outage as a gift from God, but it was for us at Troyeville. How sweet it was to sit around the circle in the dim light and praise our Father in Heaven together. Over half the people there were youth - and of course, that was an additional blessing for me. Thanks God!