I’ve experienced my fair share of crazy road adventures. Like the time Jenilee LeFors and I were already late for the airport and somehow drove 25 miles in the wrong direction (and miraculously still made the flight). Or the time that Ryan Zempel and I got trapped on an island and began to wonder if we had time warped into an episode of Lost. And then there was the epic week of snowstorms in DC that left us hopping from city to city across the United States.

Last week, I experienced a new adventure. Let me try to sum up.

I flew to Atlanta on Wednesday with our NCC Kids Team. The amazing Nina Schmidgall was leading breakouts, and I wanted to cheer her on. Since Nina didn’t speak until Thursday morning, I scheduled a little side trip for Wednesday. I set my Garmin for Knoxville, Tennessee… specifically, Sevier Heights Baptist…so I could hear my good friend Emily speak to the high school group and my good friend Tim Miller speak at The Walk.

I knew there were bad storms and even tornadoes creeping across Alabama and Tennessee that day, so I was a little nervous about the trip. But Emily did a quick check on the weather for me and assured me everything would be okay.

Let me frame this just a bit. In an earlier life, I was an environmental engineer who specialized in stormwater management. That means I’ve been out working in some pretty severe weather. And I’m from Mobile, Alabama, where I have witnessed a fair share of hurricanes. What I drove through on Wednesday was unlike anything I have ever experienced.

Finally arriving at Sevier Heights, I went directly to Emily’s office, which is actually inside a satellite office building across the parking lot from the rest of the church. I found it odd that no one was sitting at the front desk reception area. Maybe they left work early because of the weather. Trudging my soaked self down the hallway, I poked my head into Tim Miller’s office. He too, was absent. I jumped into Emily’s office with great exuberance…only to find that desk, too, was void of its owner. Callie Dunlap was also nowhere to be found. I plopped into Emily’s desk, took a photo looking out from her desk, and sent her a text: “I am here; where are you?”

It was then that I remembered I desperately needed a potty break (Sorry…TMI).  I decided to take the scenic route to the restrooms in hopes of running into someone that would know the whereabouts of Tim, Emily, and Callie.

The entire office. Empty. Completely unlocked, all power on, and deserted.

At that moment, I had two thoughts. One, my eschatology was wrong; there is a rapture after all. And two, that rapture just happened.

Before I could consider the implications of being left behind or strategize how to avoid the mark of the beast or develop a survival plan for the next seven years, my phone rang. Emily said, “you’ve got to follow my instructions.” Sure enough, she was calling to tell me where all of the people who didn’t want the mark of the beast were camped out. Oh wait. Never mind. The rapture didn’t happen…they were just all evacuated into the main building. Not to avoid the mark of the beast but to avoid the tornadoes that were rumbling down the streets of Knoxville. Awesome, back to my postmillennial self. Or amillennial. Or whatever I am on any particular day.

I raced across the church parking lot to join the huddled masses as they waited out the storm. After a few minutes, we were released.

Fast forward…time for Elevate…the high school student ministry. Emily had barely started her message before chaos struck. As she stood teaching, we heard a distant roar that sounded like an approaching train. Building and building and building. Emily speeds up her message and ends the service abruptly.

Meanwhile, Tim is trying to decide whether or not to cancel the last night of The Walk. A $6,000 investment…and a man-hour investment too large to quantify. I’ll blog later about the tough decisions that leaders are required to make. The Walk was cancelled.

Tim, Emily, and I hid away in the pastor prep room as storm after storm after storm swept through Knoxville. I checked in with friends in Alabama and Tennessee. Then the hail started. Hail the size of my head. Okay, maybe not quite that big. But definitely the size of tennis balls. My poor rental car. Oh well, let’s not think about that right now. Let’s think about the fact that the kitchen is filled with enough cotton candy to feed 1,000 college kids who are no longer coming. I ate pink, blue, and purple fluffs of sugar until my head hurt. We thought about playing hide and go seek in the church but decided that taking down tables and clearing up the set-up from the planned Walk event would be a better investment of time.

At 11:30, the television to which we had been glued was now assuring us that the end was near. Meteorologically speaking…not eschatologically speaking. Emily and I decided it was finally safe to head to her house. The debris along the road was unbelievable. Trees down. Limbs mangled. Wrecks.

As we turn into Em’s neighborhood, we see the next adventure before us. Standing water. The neighborhood was flooded. Time to kick off the shoes, roll up the jeans, and head out Huck Finn style. We were about to learn that this was not the end of the night. Far from it. It was only the beginning…

To be continued…