Well, last week we were talking about a different hurricane, Harvey, and still
praying for the recovery of the Houston and Gulf areas along there. But, Pastor
David, Irma is approaching. Irma's already caused destruction. Just what's
going through your mind right now even before we talk about what we're doing as
far as plans in Orlando are about this devastation that's already occurred with
some of the island nations. Yeah, Matthew, thank you for for doing this. And the
reason we're doing this is we want you to know as much as we can possibly tell
you at this time because the uncertainty of this time in our life is because of
the uncertainty of a hurricane. We just don't know where it's going to go. And
you know one moment we see a track that takes it right up the middle the spine of
Florida. And then we see a track that takes it all to the east. And I just came
out of a little prayer meeting and we prayed it would just turn right, go out
in the Atlantic and die. Just go out and not touch lives. But I guess it
already has. So, let's talk just a little bit about what we do know
at this point. And so let me tell you this: pray. I mean, just every morning and
every time I'm thinking and praying I'm calling out the names of people I know
that are down in South Florida. The places I know and just pray that the
Lord will spare a life, and spare property, and the Lord will just cause
this thing to go away and it will not harm anyone. The word says, "You have not
because you ask not." It's okay, ask Him. In fact, let me tell you about an
opportunity if you'd like to join in the time of prayer. We're opening up Marie
Williams Chapel, tomorrow (Thursday) 11 o'clock (a.m.) through two o'clock pm.
So during the noon hour if you want to come and sit and just pray, there'll be
some music and some things to help you in the atmosphere of it. But we want
that to be a part of our getting ready. Yeah, you're able to just drop in for that.
You don't have to feek as if you need to stay that whole time
for those three hours. But,Thursday, 11 o'clock am to 2 o'clock pm. That's tomorrow
and we're recording this right now. Marie Williams chapel, on the west side
of our campus. There's a link at the bottom for more info here that you're
reading. And we'll be people who come together as a church to pray for that.
Pastor we know that's something, also we don't have to be here at South John
Young Parkway to be praying. We should have what's going on in our minds and
our hearts and our prayers throughout the next day, day and a half, certainly as
as things are approaching for us. We're making some preparation to the best of
our ability for things here at First Baptist Orlando. Talk to us about how
we partner with the local governments and also the Red Cross for what our
property is used for. Your property as someone who's invested and involved here at
the church. That's right, the thing that I want you to know, as we talk about how
to prepare for this, is we will follow Orange County and the emergency
systems that are already in place. We'll follow the city of Orlando and what they
already have in place, and and we partner with the Red Cross. With the Red Cross we are
a designated shelter for the Red Cross. Faith Hall on the stage side is a
designated shelter. So we're ready to go with them. Also our student building
is a designated shelter for employees of Orange County.
Many of them are those workers that work at the Correctional Facility on 33rd
Street, but also others that might be there. This was the case in Hurricane
Matthew, e opened that up and so we partner with local, both government as
well as an organization like the Red Cross, because we feel like they know. And
they do that well. We don't do that that's not as we do. But Matthew I think
it's important for for all of us to remember we're going to do what we do
well. And we're going to share Christ, we're going to pray for people, we're
going to make sure that as they come on this campus that
they're cared for and that they know why we exist. Absolutely. And we
exist for Him. Yeah, in a practical sense David, I know we encourage everyone who's
watching us, anyone who's a part of our church, to follow the recommendations
that the emergency managers of our state of our local government provide for us.
You find out where that closest shelter is for you. You find out where your
evacuation plan may be. Anything that we can responsibly do to prepare, on our
website we're just repeating information that we get that's got some of those
contacts and other websites and phone numbers listed to help you as a as
a resource there. And as pastor mentioned once they activate us as a shelter we
work with red cross in Orange County following their leads for helping
provide a secure and safe environment here with what may happen with the storm.
We also know something that might be, because we've got so many individuals
who just love and care about the church. What's going to go on this weekend?
Right now it's too soon to tell. But David what's the best way for
people to stay in the know regarding our weekend plans? We're gonna honor,
again, what Orange County has said. For example, if we hear that there's a curfew
and they really don't want people to be driving Saturday night or Sunday we're
not going to have services, because we're not going to ask you to do something
that goes against what the officials are telling us. So we know that number one,
we're going to evaluate Matthew as he gets closer and that's the track is a
little more defined we're gonna evaluate what our options are. Ican tell
you this much, that when we do make the decision, most likely on Friday, we will
make the decision for the whole weekend. In other words, we're not going to say,
"Well we're having Saturday night service but not Sunday," or "We're having Sunday
but not Saturday night." That just causes confusion. So it's probably going to be a
matter of saying, "Okay, the weekend services have been canceled." And the
other thing that does is it allows this facility to be available. Let me just go
ahead and tell you something: this facility will be open. There's not going
to be closure here. People are welcome here. We want to
encourage you to go to the the shelter that is closest, that's most convenient,
that we think there's a system in place for that and that's a good system. But
just know that it is going to be open. In fact we've already designated
that there will be a chapel-type atmosphere in the Worship Center. So
let's say we have folks in the shelter in Faith Hall. There will be opportunity
if they'd like to go in and pray, they'd like to go in and just sit meditate, or
to just think about their families. That's very much a possibility, so I
don't want you to think that we've closed everything off and people are not
going to be welcome. People are always welcome. Yeah, you believe in
your heart, you teach it to all of us, is that all people matter to God. We believe
that and we believe that we're a place that exists to show that love and we're
going to do so. We're going to keep everyone safe and secure as we possibly
can and we'll be making plans. Best way, follow us on social media,
make sure you know on the web, if you can get a connection, how to get to FirstOrlando.com
And as we have power, as we have resources and facilities, we're
going to use those to care for and truly "Love Orlando" as we say with what may be
coming and our disaster relief teams to respond whichever direction this may go.
There's not a lot of specifics right now, but we wanted to let you know that
they're going to be coming in the ways that you can best check that. I've got a
question for you, someone asked me last night David, "I'm a Christian, I'm follower,
I live in Metro West, and I'm praying: Lord the storm doesn't hit me here." Is
that the prayer? Because it means are we praying for the storm to go somewhere
else, or anybody else? Just talk to that because it's been a topic I think on
people's minds. Yeah as a follower of Jesus...it's hard to pray Lord sent it to
North Carolina you know, because we know that the Lord loves them as much as he
loves us. My prayer has been Lord cause it to die. Bring windshear, bring all
these things that can knock the strength out of it. You know Matthew, it's
another reminder that we live in a world it's been touched by sin. This earth is
crying out. These hurricanes, it wasn't God's plan. It wasn't a part
of the creation. In the Garden of Eden. It came as a result of the sin of man and
so there is, in Romans 8, that passage says that, "creation groans for redemption," and
this is another reminder. And I think it's a good reminder to us, that we're
not in control. You know God...we talk about how
much man can do. We can send man, literally a man to the moon. We can send
spaceships. We can create all kinds of stuff. You know there's a lot of things
we can't control. We can't control weather We can't control cancer, illness, things like that.
So it ought to drive us to Him, not out of selfishness, but literally out of the
recognition that our life is in Him. We must have Him. So I'm hoping and praying
that during this season, that people will realize they need they need a Savior.
They need God. They need something bigger than them. You know you're okay as long
as you're bigger than everything, but the first time you run into something bigger
than you, you're not enough. Well we have a God who's always enough. And we have
Jesus who is always enough. So let me tell you again, and remind you and this
is because we love you and we want the best for you. Please if there is an
emergency, call the numbers that are always before you like now 911, or are
those numbers for shelters. Do what they're telling us to do. And we want to
make sure we honor that because we believe that's a good system and it
works, okay? We welcome calls if there's an emergency
or whatever. But we don't want you to delay what ought to be the call to get
real help immediately. But if there's something that we can do. We're going to try to
man communication lines and as much as possible we're going to try to be able
to field those requests, you know of a need or you know of a situation we need
to be aware of, certainly we will do everything we can.
If there's no power here we will not be a shelter there's not going they're not
going to put place where they have no power. So that
obviously will be one determining factor. And then also I would add, Matthew,
that as we think about it, this church is going to be here for people. I
don't, I can't say that strongly enough. We exist for the glory of God
and that glory is seen through his people. I just read a verse to a group of
guys, Psalm 24, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof and all that is
in this world belong to Him." That's one of the translations, it just basically
means this is His place. This is His world. We belong to Him. So we are going
to do everything we can to demonstrate the love of Christ to people and to
provide a safe place, should that need arise. And I think, stay in touch with us
through social media, staying in touch with us hopefully we have an email
possibility, email blast, also there will be some notifications given to the
television stations as much as they're able to be on air you'll see or maybe
hear something about First Baptist. We're going to try to get it out as many ways
as we possibly can, so stay tuned and that'll help you know what's going to
happen at least for the weekend. Yeah, that's a good note for us to wrap up on.
We encourage you to pray perhaps consider joining us tomorrow Marie
Williams Chapel. That's Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Continue making your own preparation for what's going on with you and your family
personally, and know that we'll be updating as often as we can even if we
don't have an update just checking in to let you know. A final word Pastor? You
know let's already remember those who've been affected, we kind of are talking
like it's yet to happen. It's happened and there are islands that have been
devastated and I hope we never forget that anytime these kind of things happen
there are people's lives affected. And because of that, we pray for them, we love
them, God loves them, and we pray somehow the Gospel is given and shared and there's
hope even after the storm. Yeah, the National Hurricane Center ended their 5
a.m. bulletin this morning with the line, "May God bless us all." Well that's our
prayer, so amen. Thank you for watching. We'll be back with more updates on our
website, social channels, and other avenues as more information is available
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