As strange as it may seem, the decision about whether to cancel a church service due to weather conditions can be a difficult one to make. My personal inclination is to never cancel a service and to let each individual make his/her own personal choice about venturing into the weather. But, I am becoming increasingly more cautious with these decisions every year.
A few times over the years the decision has been easy because there was so much snow that it was impossible for us to clear the parking lots. On most occasions, however, it is much more difficult simply because you cannot predict whether a given snow storm will produce what is forecast or know exactly the impact it will have on the community.
You also have to take into account the difficulty of operating our ministry when there is the potential of significant numbers of people absent from their areas of service due to snowy/icy weather. And, if you continue with the schedule in spite of the conditions, some of our dedicated staff will try to be present even if they would not choose to do so otherwise. The consequence is that some people are unduly jeopardized by a decision to continue with a service when there is snow.
In addition, a church our size simply cannot mobilize for services without sufficient time to prepare, nor can we cancel a service effectively without plenty of time to get the word out. Consequently, the decision about canceling or conducting a service when weather is threatening usually has to be made well in advance of us knowing the full impact of a storm. That means that we may choose to cancel on the basis of the information we have at the time only to have conditions improve rather than worsen.
As you can see, a lot of factors play into any decision to cancel a service when the weather is snowy. Having heard horror stories of people injured or even killed trying to get to church in bad weather, I now choose to err on the side of caution more often than I did in the earlier years of my ministry. I love our people too much to place them in jeopardy of a fall or car accident on slippery roads/parking lots.
Since we aren’t having services tonight due to these weather conditions, take the evening and spend it with your family. God will be pleased if we use this opportunity to give quality time to those that matter the most to us.
