This past week the Philly area was blanketed by a rather strange storm.  The forecast (which have been historically wrong all winter) was for 1 -2 inches of snow, followed by significant rain-fall.  This isn’t that unusual for this area.  We’ll get a few inches of snow, and then a ton of rain.  This is typically fine with me because:

• The resulting snow is awesome for snowballs.
• The rain washes the side-walks and driveways clean.

This storm, however, was just weird.  We got the typically 1 – 2 inches of snow followed by rain – but we didn’t get enough rain to wash the snow off the paved surfaces the way it normally does.  Even odder was the fact that the temperature actually dropped rapidly while it was raining.  I’d never seen that around here (though I’d experienced it a few times in MA when we lived there).  The result was a thick covering of slush on any paved surface.  By the time the rain ceased, the water had pooled in large areas – and with the temerature dropping rapidly it was quickly freezing.  Normally, I’d just throw salt down on it – but at points the slush was nearly 2 inches deep, and when I shovelled water just pooled in to refill the gaps.  It was a mess.  My driveway was impossible to deal with, but I did get a semi-decent path carved around my house and the Church.  Thankfully, the main entrance to the Church is raised up some, so I was able to clear off our steps and ramp completely.

The Church lot, on the other hand, was literally a skating rink.

This posed a problem.  While Central has gotten progressively younger in my six years here, we still have a significant number of people who are in their 70’s and 80’s who really shouldn’t be walking on a slick surface.   So what did we do?  Did we tell people the lot was impassable and they should just stay home?  Did we look around and find someone to blame for the condition of the lot, even though the conditions of the storm would have had it end up even worse had it been plowed (our lot is grace/mud/stone, there’s no way to really plow it clean)?  Nope, we saw an opportunity to make sure that worship was accessible for those who wanted to come.  We saw an opportunity to show folks, some of whom may think all we’ve done over the last few years was done just to spite their desires, that their presence was valued.

We did valet parking.

Two guys came at 8:45 and got folks in for Sunday School.  Then went out again before worship to make sure other people were safely brought into the building.  After worship, one of those gentleman retrieved all the cars (his partner was occupied) and saw people depart safely.  It wasn’t a gimmick, it wasn’t our attempt to “add value” to coming to worship – it was an honest statement to people who came, “We actually care about your well-being.”

Central had an opportunity to over-come an obstacle, and cleared it beautifully in Jesus’ name.  I was quite proud.