Time for Plan B
I once attended a corps where, one Sunday morning, the corps officers just didn’t show up.
The meeting was due to start at 10am, and the officers usually arrived about an hour earlier, but the worship band members began to arrive at about 9.15 for a run-through of the morning’s songs and they opened the hall and turned lights on.
At about 9.40, someone thought it was unusual the officers hadn’t arrived and sent them a text message. There was no response, so they called one of the officers at 9.50 and it went through to the message bank. They tried again five minutes later – same response.
At 9.59, the worship leader came to me and said, “I have no idea where they are, and I can’t contact them. I can lead the meeting if you preach. Here’s the meeting lead.” I said, “Okay. Let’s get started.”
So, they followed the prepared meeting lead while I quickly read the chosen Scripture passage for the morning – luckily it was one I was familiar with! About 40 minutes later, with an open Bible in hand, I gave a 20-minute sermon on that passage, which was followed by a response song and then a closing song.
At the end of the service, the worship leader turned his phone back on and there was a message from the CO saying they’d had a family emergency that morning and had gone to hospital, not even having time to send a message to anyone about the Sunday service. All was now well and stable and they were grateful that a Sunday service had happened!
If this ever happens at your corps and you quickly have to come up with a Plan B, here are some other options you could consider:
Plan B: Watch a movie. Most corps have some Christian DVDs lying around that can be shown and then discussed. Maybe don’t go with Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’, although it always makes me laugh.
Plan C: Run a talent show. As long as each item has some sort of Christian link or content, it’s time for people to pull out their best solo, recitation, liturgical dance or impression of the absent corps officer.
Plan D: Take over a restaurant. Be it the local Macca’s or the food court at the shopping centre, it will be a great time of witness and fellowship to descend en masse and spread the love of Christ over a latte. I’d suggest not taking the corps flag to wave around. When you take up the offering, make sure you approach everyone who happens to be using the establishment at the time.
Plan E: Break into small groups, spend some time in prayer and biblical reflection, and then have a Nerf gun battle. The first group to run out of bullets or surrender has to pay the usual offering amount given by the whole congregation.
I’m sure you can come up with some of your own ideas. Be creative. As long as no one tells the corps officers, they’ll never know!
– Major Mal Davies is Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.
