Two Sundays ago, things looked a little different, as just one minute into our first service of the day, we were all caught by surprise when the fire alarm went off! This can be a normal occurrence during off-hours for testing, as it’s been an ongoing issue with the building, but were surprised when they decided to go off during service!

We have a Sunday evacuation plan and practice fire drills with the kids but you don’t know how it will happen in real time. We are so grateful for how smoothly everything ran as our teams led everyone out safely in only 6 minutes! Our Grace Kids team were the champions of the day as they executed their evacuation protocol in an organized, calm, and quick manner!

As the Associate Director of Grace Kids, Megan’s first instinct was to check all the classrooms to make sure the leaders knew what to do, but by the time she got to the rooms, the teachers had already followed the protocol and were ready to head outside to the safety zone! Even members of the Grace Kids teams who work outside of the classroom were immediately ready to offer extra hands! In fact, all of our teams were incredibly encouraging as they held open doors with a smile and told the teams what a great job they were doing! Parents and guardians patiently waited as the team had to follow protocol and expressed immense gratitude for the way everything was handled.

It even ended up being an opportunity for guests and families to connect while they were waiting outside to get cleared to go back into the building! Although we had to cancel our first service, we were still able to have our two other services! It was amazing to see our 11:00 am packed, including welcoming back those returning from the 9:30 am service. Our Grace Kids team also welcomed back returning families for the 2nd service.

We are so grateful to our teams for how they handled the unexpected that Sunday! That morning also reminded us of the importance of having our own space! Join us as we continue to pray as we move through the process with our new community center. Every Thursday morning at 7:30 am we are coming together in person at 409 14th Street to pray for our new building. We’d love for you to join us!