18 1/2 Hrs of SunShine Pt 2

Again, I was thinking about the www.Whatifthechurch.net Serve Day….

The day started in Hope with abundant sunshine and perfect temperatures. The day ended on an early Sunday Morning nearly 19 hours later in an old church sanctuary, under a huge wooden cross hanging from the ceiling as a group of men; sweaty, hot, sore, and tired labored to clean up the last piles of saw dust and nails. It has now been long dark outside the stained glass windows. The joy and fun of volunteer work had become a distant memory several hours ago. All that remained was the reality that the job had to be completed tonight for the worship service in this building would be starting soon. In just a short while the people who call this church home will show up to praise God as they have done for the past 40 years. But, this time they will be greeted by an all new look and feel!

So as I think back to my time last night, it was the sounds of the moment that impacted me most. In the final minutes of our time together as we completed the clean-up from the preaching platform project I heard so many sounds. Inside the sanctuary, endlessly roared the shrill sounds of compressors and nail guns. The sounds of the spinning saws and drills echoed from the vaulted, wooden beamed ceilings. There were also the sounds of men working together to make it all happen – but outside, in the darkness was the sound of people fighting, the sounds of awful cursing in anger as the people in the apartment complex behind the church tried to hurt with each other with words and  fists, and then as a final reminder of the battle that rages between good and evil, Light and dark, the sound of gun shots cracked in the distance outside the front door of the church.

It was a day that I will not soon forget. It was a day that I want share with others. It was a day that will live on for many years to come because of the things that God started in the SunShine, when the Church comes TOGETHER!