The Ultimate Question

It was a typical Wednesday in the church office—the normal hustle and bustle, but basically pretty quiet. The fire alarm went off and I thought “I don’t remember being told we would have a drill today.”

Moments later our executive pastor Greg came running down the stairs and I thought, “I don’t believe this is a drill. Maybe I should check this out.”

No one seemed to know the source of the alarm, so we all proceeded to empty the building as quickly as possible. The normal relaxed, friendly manner that is normal for the office, pre-school and the various activities of the day gave way to tense, hurry-up and get outside, anxiety prone, behaviors. The building was almost empty, except for the Women’s Ministries group, who went right on talking and visiting because they, like me, assumed this was just another drill for the pre-school. That is all except WM Director Sandy Mason. She came upstairs to check it out just in time to hear that it was a false alarm brought on when a child thought the pretty red box on the wall was something that looked like fun to play with. Sandy was still a bit perturbed that the ladies didn’t take it seriously so I gave her permission to give them a good scolding (which I had no authority to do).

Soon an email was sent out by Jennifer to let us all know “Today’s Fire Alarm was brought to you by a 2 year old who thought the lever on the wall looked cool.“

We all agreed it was a better fire drill than the normal drills because no one knew for sure what was happening. Now they’re trying to decide the ultimate question—should they discipline the two-year-old or give him an award for staging a successful fire drill?

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . .and that's My View from Tanner Creek.