Five letters. Crazy.
There are some weekends where things run smoothly. Praise God this one ended smoothly, but it took a while for us to get there. I often joke that all I do is control chaos. Well, today I don't know how much I controlled it, but there was chaos.
At CF Homestead this morning, two minutes into Mighty to Save, the last song before we were supposed to start the Video Teaching...the lights flickered. I immediately looked for Jorge, since he has a habit of tripping over cables and unplugging devices. I did not find Jorge, but seconds later the room went completely dark. No power in the building. Make that no power in the school. And no power at the homes on the other side of the canal. And no power all the way out at Harris Field. Evidently, no power anywhere in Homestead.
Let me give props where due. Berch and his band did an incredible job continuing on in worship. When the power went off, there was a hideous feedback from the speakers (and I'm still not sure where it came from), but Berch kept on playing accoustic, desperately trying to keep the ambience of worship. Drums picked up too. I did notice he was doing a lot of praying during the rest of Mighty to Save.
After seeing the band was okay, I went to get Jorge. With great joy I told him that it was time for the message, and with video teaching offline Jorge get's to preach. He got his Bible and in about four minutes hammered out what he was going to say.
Once Jorge was comfortable speaking in the dark, we dove into coordinating the next service. I will say this about Homestead campus... it really is a big family. I walked out into that hallway and had about 10 men itching to help the situation out. Matthew Oakey (one of my first blog subscribers) recommended generators. Chuck and Michael said they had generators, and we sent them home to get them. I sent Onan to get gas. Someone else got fans and indoor AC units. Somebody else had a bunch of extension cords.
We made it back with plenty of time to spare. I told the volunteers to put the generators into place, and we would set everything up ASAP.
Jorge, not realizing that the clocks were no longer working (b/c the power was out) was preaching the sermon of a lifetime, in the dark, with no microphone. He finally saw my signal to wrap it up (I think he could have gone for another hour) and we cleared out the building quickly so we could work to set up the generators for the service.
As God as my witness, as soon as we got the room cleared of all of the people, the lights come back on, and the building powers back up. Everyone gets excited and I make the (premature) call to strike the generators because the power is fixed. Not more than 2 minutes after I say that, the power goes out again.
Reliving my fear of Homestead Power, I did not want to have a completely powerless system for the 11:30 service. We set up the generators anyway, and ran all essentials (audio, video, screens, computers) from two different generators. I was doubtful that two generators could handle the load, but I was happy with the results. At least we know now it can be done.
And the power did come back on before the 11:30 service was to start, so we had complete light and AC for the service. So we basically went crazy for about an hour for no reason, but I think God realized I needed to work on stress management.
I will say this. CF would not exist if not for our volunteers. Every week I'm in awe that people continue to give the way they do, and am thankful that they have taken ownership of CFs vision the way they have. Thank you for bouncing ideas, asking questions, analyzing situations, and basically making CF what we are today.
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