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You know, one of the things I love about community ministry is that it's often that I have to build something new.

It's more about using what I already have to meet a need.

I've been in Lafayette at Faith Church for 36 years, and the gentleman that hired me was named Bill Goode, my predecessor,

and I served as associate for 8 years, and then we made a leadership transition 28 years ago.

When I went to Faith, they had just built a new building, and it was very, very nice, brand new.

The Red Cross contacted us since we were so near the interstate and said, could we use your church as a disaster shelter, especially in Indiana for snow emergencies.

We said yes, and sure enough, that first winter had a terrible snowstorm. They had to close I-65.

People are coming off of the interstates, pouring into our building. Obviously, with snow and slush, had all that kind of stuff getting tracked all over the place.

We're quickly setting up cuts. It's the first time we've ever done it, and trying to get people situated for the night, trying to figure out food, and just all that sort of thing.

So pretty soon, the brand new gym is filled with cuts. The Sunday school classrooms are filled with cuts, and there are more and more people coming in.

So we actually had to talk about, are we going to have to shut this shelter down?

And I said, wait, we can't do that? I mean, it's dangerous. We got to get these people off of the interstate.

And so the executive director of the Red Cross, and Pastor Goode, my predecessor, who at that point was an elderly man, and I were standing right at the entrance to the auditorium, the sanctuary.

It had brand new padded pews. It still smelled new. The executive director of the Red Cross looked in there, and she said, is there any way we could allow people just to come in and sleep on those padded pews?

And I'll never forget what Pastor Goode said. He said, well, this place sleeps 700 on Sunday mornings.

Why can't it sleep whatever it needs to sleep on Saturday night?

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