Church service by...flashlight?

We had a great Sunday--the morning church service went well and the weather was beautiful. Around four o'clock, a few friends of ours from Fort Collins came down to join us for an early dinner and evening church service.

While Q was leading songs, I sat in a pew with our friends, the Russell's and Heather Berger. Something we do on Sunday nights is choose favorites from the hymnal to sing. It is always a neat time that we have singing praises to the Lord. 

We had just begun singing one of the songs when all of a sudden, the organ stopped working and all the lights went out! The sound of voices fainting in the darkness was surreal. There was hardly any light from outside, so it was pitch black in the church auditorium. As soon as this happened, one of the church members started singing a little tune to the effect that "when the lights were out, the preaching was over!" Everyone roared with laughter!!

While Pastor Kemper, Q and a couple men went to see what to do, we continued singing songs a cappella. They tried the breaker downstairs, but there was nothing wrong. One look outside told us that the electricity had gone out in part of the neighborhood. It also meant that the power outage had affected the parsonage, too--our house! I had a quick thought that perhaps we could finish the service at our home, but now knew it wouldn't work out.

After finding a few flashlights, the service continued. It was suggested that we sing, "Send the Light!" and perhaps the lights would go back on. But then someone else said that it should be our prayer. We all giggled at that one, too. After the special number, Pastor Kemper gave his sermon with a flashlight at the pulpit. We sang a closing hymn and prayed. It was such a fun and interesting church service. I'm sure it will be one that we and our friends won't ever forget!

Because there was no electricity at our place, Q and I decided to drive around because there was nothing we could do in the dark (except sleep, but it was too early) while we waited to see if the electricity would come back on. We ended up at Borders and then at Red Robin for a snack. When we got home, everything was in working order! We were thankful that we'd have heat and working appliances through the night.

Have any of you ever had an interesting and/or funny church service like what we had last night? I would love to hear your stories!