One chilly morning in the fall of 1974, I went to church as usual. We were a very small congregation of mostly 20-somethings, plus a sprinkling of 18 and 19 year olds.
I arrived a little bit early that day and discovered the parking lot empty. I didn’t have the key, so I waited in the car. A few minutes later someone arrived but I didn’t recognize their car. It wasn’t freezing that day, but it was cold enough to wait in a warm car for someone to arrive and let us in. The driver also stayed in his car.
After a few minutes, I started to wonder where everyone was, so I went over and struck up some conversation with the stranger. It turned out that one of our leaders had invited him to come sing a few songs for us. But the longer we waited the more strange it felt. Finally the musician, in frustration, decided to leave, and muttered something like “I’ve been trying to serve the LORD all these years, and this is what I get. I’ve had enough, and I’m getting outta here.” And zoom! Off he went.
I was dumbfounded and flabbergasted.
You would have shaken your head and said “Didn’t see that coming.”
But there was one thing I did know with full confidence. I knew my people extremely well, AND, I knew they were 100% committed to the LORD Jesus Christ and all His glory. We never failed to meet on Sunday to worship God and study the scriptures, so I had no doubt that there must be some explanation that would eventually come to light and make sense.
Maybe ten more minutes went by before one of our leaders arrived, just as I knew they would. That’s when I learned it was the day of setting clocks back one hour (to Standard Time) and I and the other early arriver had come an entire hour too early!
I hardly ever paid any attention to the radio or TV in those days, and I literally had no clue about the clock change. Apparently our guest musician was just like me 🙂