This coming Saturday, our district is sponsoring a learning event Reaching Out: Inspiration and Ideas for Small Churches, at Lexington. Bishop Schnase will be there to speak and there are several workshops and displays. I am leading worship. As I thought about the theme, I remembered a story that Hubert Neth told while he was on staff at Broadway with me. I called him yesterday to hear the story again.

There is a small church near Sedalia, New Bethel UMC, and at the time that that this incident took place, the church was really struggling financially. The board was trying to think of every possible way to cut costs. It had been the habit of the church to leave the porch light on all night, for security, I imagine, and also so that the occupants of cars passing would know where the church was. One particular Saturday night, a car approached on the dark road. The driver, a young man driving up from Springfield was in the dark in his own life. He was really at the end of his rope...his addiction had over taken his life, his family had finally left him over it because he could not or would not seek treatment. He had gotten in the car and headed north, not really paying attention to where he was going, feeling more and more helpless and hopeless. As he drove up 65 Highway nearing Sedalia, he saw light in the distance and as he got closer, he saw it was attached to a building, a church...and somehow, someway, that light felt to him like a small beacon of hope...a light in his darkness. He pulled in to the parking lot, parked as close as he could to the light, and made it through the night by the grace of God and that little porch light. Weeks later the church received a note from the man who may very well might have had his life saved that night by the decision of the board to keep the light on, and told the church this story.

I hear churches, sometimes, when they are talking about how bad their financial situation is, say that they don't know how they will keep the lights on. Until I heard this story, I always thought they were talking about the light inside the sanctuary, or down in the basement., But the most important light to keep one is that one on the outside--sometimes literally as is in this story, but more often it is the Light we carry in our hearts and in the way we live. Thank you, God, that you have chosen us as your lamps to bring that light to the world. Help us always to be on the alert, always watching, with lamps lit, knowing that the Bridegroom may come at anytime, and till then, there are those who need to be shown the way to the celebration.