December 28, 2025
Today felt weird, like totally, abysmally strange. Honestly, I felt beside myself for a while this morning—like a super-duper long while. For the past 245 Sundays (minus once last year for being quite sick, like totally gross you don’t wanna hear about it sick) I’ve not missed worship… that is until this morning. I’ve gotta be about dying before I don’t show up to lead worship, (an aspect of my job I absolutely love). But as we all know too well, mother nature had other plans.
I woke up early this morning as I do every Sunday. And, knowing the forecast was calling for potential blizzard conditions, and perhaps some freezing drizzle, I peeked out the window before cleaning up. The roads looked questionable, but I figured, “You’re close Jason; the church is only a few blocks away.” So I got ready as I always do.
RING. RING. Our wonderful council president phoned. Don said the country roads were horrid and recommended cancelling. Well, being a towny and all, I figured Don knew better than me; so, we agreed to his recommendation and called-off worship.
OH MY GOSH, I felt like I was cheating on the Lord; like I was going UA (Unauthorized Absence – AWOL); like I was playing Hookey, ya know. To me, it just felt bizarre not being with all y’all at church.
Just ask my wife; I paced. I got up and sat down. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. When Don and I talked, I asked him if I should do anything, insinuating to stream my message. But he said that wasn’t necessary, that it had never been required before. Hmm… Okay, I thought. But still, for me, I felt like I was cheating on y’all.
I passed around a few more times. I sat down. I got up. And, I fussed a bunch to Danielle too. “I just don’t know what to do. Maybe I should go stream the service somehow… like do a Facebook live.” Her response was the same each time: “Chill. Honey, take a pill. Will you just relax?” Yah, that didn’t help; so, I called my 88 yr-old dad. He gave me the same advice. Thanks pops, LOL.
Enter breakfast—that’ll calm my jitters. Nope. That didn’t work either. I still didn’t know how to just chill. Only one thing helped. I climbed the stairs, fired up OBS and decided to “go live” with my sermon. For me anyway, I needed to go to my happy place, and that was to behind a virtual pulpit (because the real deal was blocks away).
It took me a number of tries, but I figured out how to stream. With OBX software working the way I needed and the Facebook key synced, I figured out how to “go live” (even though it took a bunch of tries). Walla – I did it. But…
Then I screwed it all up, by trying to show an intro video that instantaneously shut down the stream due to copyright infringement. I guess Burl Ives didn’t want us to have a “Holly Jolly Christmas.” Thanks Burl, hehehe.
Thirty minutes later—after seeing the BIG RED WARNING (copyright infringement), I realized the stream didn’t take. Nobody could hear a word I had to say. Needless to say, I felt like I’d failed y’all again.
Let’s do this again, I thought, this time without the Holly Jolly Christmas part. But for some reason, that stream wouldn’t take. Let’s try this again —record, edit, and upload. Simple. That’s it.
That was easy. Job done. The whole process took me till 1PM, but doing so helped me feel good, and that’s when it hit me. All along, I realized the reason I couldn’t relax was because I wasn’t in my “happy place” – that place being with y’all, and behind the pulpit also.
What’s your happy place? Is it at work, at home with a book, with your BFF or even your spouse and kids? I have a number of happy places, but up there at the top is spending time with you and the Lord, in worship, in study, at the place we call church.
You know this as much as I do, the church isn’t the place, it’s the people of the Lord being together with the Lord. Being with God and you all – that’s my happy place, and I thank God for the church and being in worship with you.
Father God, thank you for creating your church, so that we could spend time together with you. Please Dear Lord, if you’re gonna cause another blizzard, can it wait until Monday, that way others can have a day of chill.