Here’s a video I posted to YouTube for our church congregation. We’re using GoToMeeting.com for our Sunday worship, Tuesday fellowship meetings, and Wednesday night Bible study. While some of our folks do have smart phones, computers, and internet access, some of them don’t. With GoToMeeting.com, people can dial-in as well as log-on. But, we miss each other in person and are looking forward to the day we can gather together again.
Our house sits on Main Street across from the Carter’s #3 store. I have found Carter’s #2 (it’s in Gretna), but I’m still looking for Carter’s #1. But, back to my point. Next to Carter’s #3, reposes Scott’s Funeral Home. Nice folks and they perform their services with dignity and kindness. But more importantly, they’re also the only business in town with a time-and-temperature sign, which we can see from our upstairs front windows. They turn the sign off at 11 PM, so if you need to check the temperature, you have to do it before 11.
This morning when I got up, the temperature registered 21-degrees. The windchimes reminded me it was windy. We were supposed to have snow last night, but it went east of us, so that was the big topic at church today. Of course, the crowd was down because it was unbelievably cold and windy, making the “feels-like” (whatever happened to the word windchill?) in the single digits. So, the conversations in the hall went something like this —
“Little chilly this morning, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but we dodged a bullet last night on the snow.”
“Right about that. ‘Course, I like a good snow a couple of times a year.”
So, that conversation got repeated in various ways about 50 times today. But, we still had 39 in Sunday School, and probably 60 in worship, and actually had a young family visit for the first time today.
Our sanctuary has three sections of pews downstairs — left, middle, and right. All the heat registers are on the sides, so when I walked into the sanctuary this morning, everybody was sitting on one side or the other — the middle was totally empty. I kidded our folks about Baptists who like warmer temperatures and reminded them that in eternity there was at least one very warm location. Of course, someone reminded me that heaven was not this cold.
Because the group was smaller, I walked down off the platform and preached from the floor in front of the communion table. I like to do that from time to time, and our folks seem to like the variety. Today’s sermon was from John 1:29-42, titled “Invite Others.” Afterward, we all rushed home for lunch so we could get back for the music recital.
This afternoon, the community gathered in our sanctuary at 3 PM for the mid-year recital of the Chatham Arts Community Music School. About 30-kids performed, parents were proud, and video cams were everywhere. So, that was it. A good Sunday on a cold day in Chatham. We’ve been doing this for 151-years now. I imagine we’ll be around for a few more, cold weather or not.
ChuckWarnock.com 