Every summer I get together with my Preacher Camp friends to plan worship, support each other, and have fun. Every year we regale each other with stories from the year gone by, things that no one will ever believe happened. Every year we add another chapter to the book, “They Didn’t Teach This in Seminary!”
Today is another one of those chapters. It isn’t as funny as what you do when you have to shovel out dead cats from a widow’s house, but just as serious. Among all the Hebrew and Greek exegesis, among the lessons in hospital visitation, there in the practicalities of how to baptize I never remember this important lesson.
“When Do You Cancel Sunday Worship?”
It is perhaps the most agonizing decision ever! That might come as a surprise to many. You just assume that pastors call off church at every occasion! And maybe some do, but most….
It was an agonizing decision in Charleston. There were those days when a tropical storm was approaching. Whenever the winds got above a certain speed they would close the bridges, which was a real issue when your church is on an island! We called off church one Sunday and I never heard the end of it!
I didn’t think we would have that issue in Canada, but this fall Hurricane Dorian came to call! Power was out, but that wasn’t an issue, so we had worship with a small group of saints!
But today!
Actually the day after, but you get the gist!
It is winter and we have a storm. Not snow! That is easy! We don’t cancel because of snow! We learned that lesson our first Sunday. There was nearly a foot of snow, the kind that would have closed school in SC for a month! But in Nova Scotia??? HA!
Last night the Weather Network was predicting freezing rain as this storm moved through. The problem was it was supposed to arrive at 8:30! I normally get to church at 9:00. Our services start at 10:00. IF they were right then the worst would arrive just as we were heading home!
But then…..it is a forecast!
And this morning I awoke to…..rain.
I texted with our Minister of Music and we agreed that there was no reason to cancel services. At 7:56 she texted, “Ok. I’ll start to get ready.”
At 7:58 I texted back, “WAIT! It has changed to ice here and our porch is covered! A thin layer but I can slide!”
Within minutes the agonizing decision was made. We were going to cancel services.
I hate doing that. After all I have a sermon prepared! Sure I will use it in a few weeks, but that backs up my sermon planning! For many it is a financial issue. Can we really afford to lose the offering for a service? There is the fear of someone who won’t get the news and come anyway only to discover a darkened building! You know that there will be those who will disagree, who remember the days when “We never canceled services!” I am always terrified because I am from away, from down south, even south of Boston! What a wimp! And then there is the fear of “What if it doesn’t happen? What if it just rains? What if it doesn’t come until later today?
But then there is the knowledge that many of those who will come out in a storm are the ones who should least be out—those faithful older saints. There is the memory of someone who slipped and fell on the snow coming into a meeting Thursday night. And that was snow!
Do you understand the fear, the paralysis?
There are times when you just miss it! You have worship when there is no power and no one comes. You cancel services and nothing happens. It happens!
But
There are times when you get it right! This was the view from our house this morning at just the time we would have been leaving. That isn’t snow! That is ice! And I don’t have my car skates on this year!
So if you are planning curricula for a seminary or divinity school, if you are helping people prepare for ministry, may I suggest that you add a class, or at least a lecture among the “Eschatological Implications of the Non-Occurrence of the Parousia” on “When and How to Cancel Worship.” It may not be the most exciting, but maybe the most useful!