Would you cancel?

We cancelled this morning (probably a foot of snow outside).

 

Our sevices this morning got cancelled as well. We woke up to a surprising amount of snow, a winter weather warning and very wet roads with temps just barely above freezing. That doesn't sound to bad until you realize that is central ALABAMA! Folk here do not know how to drive in snow and ice.

 

Not to get off topic, but that's actually a very good topic for a thread. It's something I've been wondering about, myself, as our church continues to grow.

Maybe you should start a thread about that.

 

We're probably going to cancel our evening service.

 

Our services today were canceled due to icy roads. Small town ya know.

 

The good wife and I went to church this morning in my 4 wheel drive truck we had about 6-8 inches of snow....When we got there only a hand full showed up, so the ones that were there sung a couple of the Old hymns ( When I Can Read My Title Clear and Amazing Grace) held prayer and went home. The good Lord was there and I thank him for his wonderful spirit.

 

We easily could have canceled today. We only had an inch or two of snow, but many of our members live some distance away, and many of us have hills to negotiate. We had about 75 show up, and about 8 of those were visitors who came to hear our associate pastor preach. My wife had no children in her class. I had no one in my class, but I wasn't surprised since my class is men in their 80-90's. I know of several other classes with only teachers in attendance. Twenty-four of the 75 were in the choir, the organist, the minister of music. I was very surprised we had that many.

Having said that, I think each church has to deal with these situations as they feel best meets the needs of the members. When we still had Sunday evening services, we had to decide every year whether to cancel on Super Bowl Sunday. We did cancel a couple of years, but it caused some complaints from our older members who did not care much about seeing the game.

Tim Reynolds

 

We just cancelled our evening services.

 

Ours was cancelled this morning due to the snow and I was disappointed. We were just there two days ago, but I still missed today's service.

AND I love it when Christmas is on Sunday. I love going to church on Christmas morning.

 

When possible, I would prefer not to use the word "cancel", as it has negative connotations. I can certainly understand the need to cancel evening services when the weather is bad, since the cold and the darkness put people into jeopardy. But when I was a pastor we did NOT cancel Sunday morning services, for two reasons ... one practical and the other liturgical. Practically there was no way to notify everyone of the cancellation, and I was afraid someone would show up and be disappointed if we were not there. Liturgically, I planned around the church year as well as series of messages on Bible books, certain themes, etc., and I did not want to leave holes in those sequences.

One of the things we learned was that we would get visitors from other churches that had cancelled on snowy Sundays. Ours was an urban neighborhood church, to which many people can walk.

What I mean about not using the word cancel unless necessary is that, for purposes other than weather, we planned in breaks in our midweek program. So we did not say that Wed eve prayer meeting between Christmas and New Year's was cancelled; we said that the calendar was free this week. It was planned from the beginning.

Snow Sundays? I do confess that the lowest Sunday attendance was 16 people. But I did the message I had planned, just on a lower-key basis. We never made anyone feel obligated to come to worship. It was an opportunity, if they chose to accept it.

 

I think we made a mistake cancelling. They made it sound like it was going to be the end of the world and that we were expecting a serious blizzard. The snow has stopped and I don't think we got anymore than three inches.

 

You can't second guess yourself on stuff like this JDF. If you hadn't called off services and the storm had come in harder, could you have cared for those who might've gotten stuck an hour from home?

I'm guessing, like Ann said, that the storm hasn't quite reached you yet. This one is a doozy and extraplating from the problems it caused here in the south, ya'll are in for it!

Btw, they postponed the vikings/eagles game because of this storm too(Philadelphia). It looks like most of the northeast is going to get hit hard.

 

I can't wait to hear the renewed argument the closer we get to Dec. 25, 2011 (Lord Willing).

We are planning on having one service at 11AM on that day with no Sunday School and no evening service.

 

That will be so neat!

If ours cancels services on Sunday morning I will personally go sit out front, cry, and then throw up on the lawn.

You just don't do that.

I understand giving staff a break, but they're also members.

Our achieved doing so by not holding evening services.

And I didn't like it, but I don't disagree with it. The emphasis on spending time with family is great. I'm just not sure why it's not even better to spend time with them at church. If they're out of town then others are in town, right? Why don't other members kick in and fill the gaps?

But that's just me. I'd live at the church if I could. I like being in a place where I'm not distracted from Christ by the outside world.

 

Having church in a rented facility certainly does limit your options, but we don't know what the next year will bring. You may have all kinds of options! :godisgood: