So we got a little snow yesterday. It didn’t stick much in town, and there is just enough to turn to grass white here at home. Still it is good to get precipitation in any form. A mixture of rain and snow fell most of the day yesterday. It was enough to prompt us to reschedule a trip that we planned to take today to deliver firewood and a couple of used organs to our reservation partners. We don’t have access to an enclosed trailer and we felt that the organs might get wet. It turns out that it probably would have worked fine, but we’re hoping that we have a dry day next week to make the delivery.

I like the fact that we sometimes change our schedules because of the weather. These days we go through a great deal of our lives as if we are unaffected by the natural world around us. We have reliable heating and air conditioning in our cars in most buildings. The general mood seems to be one of charging forward despite the weather.

We have a meeting this morning with a company that supplies and services heating controls and equipment. We’ve been working hard at the development of a capital budget for major building upgrades and improvements. The process has been exciting. We are very fortunate to have inherited a building that was well designed and well maintained by those who went before us. Our congregation is free from debt and so has the capacity to engage in significant mission and outreach, while being comfortable in a building that serves us well. But that building is now over 50 years old. Some of the systems need to be upgraded in order to keep it serving the church for the next 50 years. So we’re making plans for the things we need to do to pass on the legacy that we’ve inherited.

One of the features of our building is that it has never had air conditioning. We’ve had a lot of discussion about air conditioning over the years, but to this date we have had other financial priorities. Air conditioning is expensive and there are only a few days each year when our building becomes uncomfortable. We have air handlers that move a lot of air and we can usually open up the building in the middle of the night and draw in cool air, keep it in the basement and then blow it up through the building to provide comfort. But there are a few days each summer when the sun heats the brick and block walls and the building becomes very warm. I know very well. The day of our daughter’s wedding was one of the warmest I’ve ever experienced in the building.

Still, there is a bit of reluctance to take the plunge and have air conditioning installed. One factor is money. It is expensive and whenever we spend money on ourselves, we have less money to invest in mission and outreach. It really isn’t a matter of simple math, because some money that is donated for building maintenance and improvements would not be donated for other projects and some money that is given for mission would not be donated for building projects. Still, money is a limited commodity in church life and we have to make decisions about our priorities. Serving others must always be our first priority.

But we haven’t stopped talking and thinking about air conditioning. One of the factors in our discussion is that we are trying to provide for the future. We hope that the investments we make in our building in this generation are of lasting quality and will serve future generations of our congregation. And, as one person put it, “Can you imagine that there will be any public building in our city ten years from now that isn’t air conditioned?”

The times are changing. Things that weren’t imaginable to our parents and grandparents are sometimes seen as necessities in this generation. I know that I have changed. In the early 1980’s, living in North Dakota, we felt that we had no need of air conditioning in our car, and we ordered a new car from the factory without air conditioning. Now, 30 years later, we have air conditioning in our cars and probably wouldn’t buy one without it. I remember the days when we had two small children in our home and felt that we had no need for a dishwasher. Doing dishes is a small job and it provides time for family conversation. Then we moved and the house we bought had a dishwasher in it. When it broke, we had become so used to it that we didn’t consider doing without. We bought a new one.

Things that once were considered to be luxuries are now considered to be necessities. I suspect that the people who planned and built our church building would be amazed by the office machines we take for granted and the amount of money we spend on them. Did anyone in the 1950’s believe that a church office would ever have a high-speed full-color printer in house? If our printer is down for more than an hour we feel like our work might grind to a halt. The distinction between the things we want and the things we need keeps shifting.

It is likely that the founders of our church didn’t imagine how fully we would use the building. There are activities planned in our building for nearly every day of the year. Children come and go to the preschool. Our educational programs include events on several days each week. The building is busy and full – and that is the way we want it to be. The building itself is one of the ways we serve the community.

I know that the day will come when we have air conditioning installed. We will be even less influenced by the weather than before. We will just keep going with our activities regardless of what is going on outside. I pray that we can be responsible with our decisions and find ways to operate the air conditioning as little as possible and consume as little energy as possible. I hope we make wise choices that result in long-lasting and sustainable equipment. The times change and we change with them.

So along with the improvements to the building, I am working to continue to develop outside spaces. We have a plan to plant more trees in the spring of 2013. We hope to continue to make places for outside worship and other activities. And we’ll keep cutting and splitting firewood outside.

Perhaps, in the future, people will ignore the weather. I suspect, however, that I’ll keep opening the door and checking the weather every morning.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.