Fire

I am pleased to inform you that this blog is taking off in an enormous way. Thank you for all of your word of mouth advertising. To date we have had 183 page loads and in the last seven days alone we have had 65 unique visitors. This is quite amazing, and it now puts pressure on me to deliver, and people have been asking me all week when I was going to blog. So there is also a sense of anticipation which is cool.

I wish I had something funny to start out with this week, (like Mr. Bartlett's picture :) ) but I do not. Unfortunately this has not been a very funny week. For those of you that don't know there was a fire at NorthRidge Church last Sunday night. There are a lot of pictures on the church website and more to come. This has been a reason for a hike in my blog stats I understand; because I actually had a fire chaser call me on Monday trying to get work for his company. But there has also been a curiosity in the community and beyond and so a lot of people have checked out our site for the first time this week.

I was sitting at home on Sunday night watching the Bucs game (I put in on my DVR and I was watching it about an hour after the game was actually over) I was downstairs and my phone was upstairs. I was very, very upset at the outcome of the Bucs game. Heath let me know that I missed a phone call and that it was my good friend Alex Smith (which is also the name of the tight end for the Bucs) and I thought that he was calling to bust my chops about the Bucs loss.

So I called Alex Smith back and he told me that the church was on fire. Now understand that he is a fireman and I make constant remarks about his profession and I sometimes even joke about fires. So when he called to say that the church was on fire, I was convinced that he was joking. He told me he wasn't and I still didn't believe him. But then he got mad... Alex never gets mad... so I knew he was serious.

I immediately got in my car and drove to the church expecting to see a little grease fire or something. When I got there though I was in total shock looking at our sanctuary, seeing flames rising out of the top. I stood on a hill facing the church surrounded by 100 people, watching the church go up in flames knowing that our lives were never going to be the same again.

At that moment the Bucs loss seemed so petty. At that moment everything seemed so petty. I immediately felt deep sympathy for our Pastor, because I knew that he was about to enter a time in his life that will be hectic and chaotic and a time in his life where people were going to be looking to him for answers and for guidance, and there is no book and no class that teaches answers in this situation. I know that right now will be the time when his leadership is put to the test, and I do believe that great leaders rise up from bad circumstances and find a way to rally the troops and to keep the ship afloat, and I believe that Pastor David is a great leader and that is what will happen.

But something else happened on that hill on Sunday night. Something that is very, very hard to explain. We became a family. There was such a spirit of unity on that hill, that it was almost hard to believe that we were there under such terrible pretenses.

******* As I am writing this I am having a very hard time explaining the feeling that was on that hill. I know that some people will read this that were there with me, and you will understand... but the rest of you, I don't think that words can do justice to what happened on Sunday night. ************

The really weird thing is that I felt privileged. Can you believe that!?!?! I had personal items ruined in my cubicle, I had a knowledge that our youth group would have to make enormous sacrifices. I knew that things were going to be totally weird, and that my job description would completely change to Pastor Flexible. And yet throughout all of that I felt privileged.

I felt privileged to be a part of something amazing that God was doing. I felt privileged to be surrounded by a church FAMILY. I felt privileged to be a part of this incredible team of Pastors that we call staff. I feel privileged to be at NorthRidge Church at such a time as this because I know that this event will change people's lives at that people will come to know Christ in a very real way as a result of this incident.

It is hard to understand, but I praise God for this fire. I praise God that no one was hurt. I praise God that the school can still function. I praise God for the space to continue on. I praise God even more than anything that by destroying a church building, He made the CHURCH grow stronger.

Keep in the center of God's will and look for opportunities this week to turn the church fire into a gospel sharing opportunity. And praise God for who He is!