Thursday, November 09, 2006

Fire In The House

The church fire alarm had been triggered by a loss of power when new construction was taking place across the street, not because of a real fire. When we walked in the building last week, the sound was recognizable but this time the hallways were filled with smoke. Not a pleasant scenario as you can only imagine. Thankfully the fire department arrived quickly, located the fire and put it out. We are very grateful. It could have been much worse. Something like this provides an opportunity to pause and consider questions like, what if my office went up in flames? Do I have off site backup copies of my most important computer files? Do I have an off site inventory list of personal office items (books, equipment etc.) for insurance purposes? And what about contingiency plans for all the ministries to function? Good questions! Even though our drama room was on the same floor as the fire, most of the wardrobe was in closed cabinets or Rubbermaid containers. We were fortunate that all we sustained was minor smoke damage to some of our costuming. This could have been really unfortunate so close to Christmas. For the church in general, most of the damage was localized and from smoke. Still, cleanup and repair will take between two and three months. It's easy to assume the tools for ministry will just be there for us. Most of the time they are. But when they're not, big time adjustments have to be made. It doesn't hurt to think about what you would do if something like this happened to your place of ministry. Maybe some preplanning could save you a big headache later. These things are never easy. We were fortunate.
God is good all the time. I think I'll get started on that inventory list.

Tim Covert

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