In my early years of living, I was fortunate to live around the space program – we lived near astronauts and engineers and other workers from NASA. I remember seeing the various early group of astronauts train in their neighborhood next to our house. I was in class with Grissom’s, Carpenters and Conrad’s. TV’s were brought into our classrooms so we could see a classmates dad launched into space. There were some really great times.
Today, I watched the last launch of the space shuttle, Discovery, as it flew it’s 39th mission into space – and I did it all on my iPhone using CNN’s news app. What a pleasure! I ignored the phone as it rang and just listened to a the last 90 minutes before the launch. As I watched the various crew flip their checklist over and listened to the voices reference other unseen checklist items, one ringing thought was clear – do we plan this much for a Sunday church service?
Do we polish and practice to get everything right, so that nothing goes wrong? Do we have contingency plans? What are our backup plans? Is the church totally clean and are the seats properly arranged? Does the sound system work properly and are the ushers ready? Do we have all our tithe envelopes available? Are the classrooms ready to handle the kids? Have we practiced our songs and do we know what key we are using? Are all the announcements documented? Are the prayer requests ready? Is my sermon ready? Have I prayed? Am I ready for worship? Can we handle the visitors needs? Are we ready to accommodate an overflow of people? Have all the bills been paid? Do we leave all of our cares and concerns behind and lift up holy hands in worship?
How much planning did you put into your time with the Lord on Sunday?