By Jonathan R. Harrah

A group of seven young people were gathered at our Apostolic church in Missouri on February 15, 2007 to rehearse an upcoming drama.  The theme of the play was the importance of the Bible and how people have died trying to protect it.  In the play, a militaristic group of men bust into a home where people are illegally studying the Bible.  The two actors portraying these roles obviously needed to have realistic looking guns, thus we used pellet guns that a member of the youth group owned.  As we practiced we thought it was a necessity to have all the lights in the church dimmed to create the dark setting of the drama.

Rehearsal was nearly over when we saw three dark figures entering the vestibule.  Two men had hand guns and the third had an assault rifle.  Realizing these visitors weren’t part of the play, we immediately began thinking our church was being held hostage.  One young man, trying to comprehend the situation, entered the vestibule and laid his pellet gun on the floor; others, panicking, followed him.  At this point one of the three men opened the sanctuary doors to reveal the rest of us, standing there.  The three men were police officers; three very unhappy police officers. 

We then began to try to explain to the police officers that this was all a church function and that we were all just rehearsing for a play.  I began to look out the front window and realized the enormity of the predicament we were in.  There were two more men with assault rifles on the street to the left, two with shotguns on the right, and one with a sniper riffle sitting on the roof of building across the street from the church. 

Apparently a concerned passerby saw two young people walking around the back of the church with their pellet guns.  They then called the police because they thought the church was being broken into and the criminals were holding some of the congregation at gun point.  Finally after great explanation, the police officers took our pastor’s name and then gave us a long lecture on the situation.

We all laugh now at the situation but when it was occurring we were on the verge of tears.  The experience gave us a brief look at what things are for other people who are in less fortunate countries then ours.  So the moral of the story isn’t “don’t play with toy guns in church,” but rather be thankful for the freedom God has given you and use that freedom.

ninetyandnine.com

© 2007, Jonathan Harrah

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Jonathan Harrah is a minister in training at Winds of Pentecost.  He travels many weekends with his parents and their children’s ministry. This fall he also plans to attend Gateway College of Evangelism where he will study theology.