My elbow is hurting just a bit, but I am still smiling as I think of how I dinged it. Traveling through time is always a risky proposition under the best of circumstances; it is far more dangerous still when the floor is wet and you go blind every other second.
Allow me to explain.
Our youth program takes place primarily during and then after the Sunday night service each week. We meet ahead of time for a few minutes to say memory verses, then the youth choir opens up the night service, some of our teenage young men take up the offering, some younger groups provide special music, and I preach a youth-centered message to the entire church. Afterward, though, is when things start to get unusual. We dismiss from service and make our way into the Hope Center, our family life building, and have some unique games for teams to compete in before having snacks and fellowship time to close the evening.
Last night as I write this, the game was one I call “A Snapshot in Time.” When the young people were escorted into the building, all of the lights were out, save for one strobe light doing its “off/on/off/on” thing pretty rapidly. There was smoke everywhere, created by several pounds of dry ice being dropped into a bucket of very hot water (we used to have a smoke machine, but it was lent out and never got returned, so we had to go retro on this one).
It was then that I came running in from the door in the far corner, shirt untucked, tie all askew, wearing a tinfoil hat and carrying a briefcase. My goal was to run through the smoke over to the shocked youth group and announce that I had come back from a trip to the past where I had taken baby pictures of many people in the church, and their teams would have to try to identify them, with the team getting the most correct winning the game and the points that go with it.