We live in an age where safety rules. Yesterday was a good case study. The young pastor in church was just starting his prayer when the fire alarms went off. He had the presence of mind to say "amen" and after that was not quite sure what to do. To every one's credit, calmness pervaded the 800 person worship centre as we watched and waited for the inevitable assurance that it was a false alarm. Moments into the uncomfortableness, another pastor came on stage with a plastic sheathed 'fire alarm protocol' document and was about to read it out to us when the music pastor came on stage, and with a sheepish explanation and a fist full of long gray wires, informed us all that it was his birthday and between services his band gave him some cupcakes with sparklers ablazing. This apparently had set off the smoke detectors and hence the alarm. Everyone gave a relieved sigh and chuckle and the preaching pastor resumed his prayer and subsequently his sermon. At the end of the sermon, the music pastor came back on stage for one more song and after the song, informed us all that the Sunday School had been evacuated and indeed, next time the alarm went 'off', we were all to calmly evacuate the building. I thought about this later. What actually happened, was a calm, rational and intelligent response to a fire alarm in a large building that had around 1200 people in it, in all of its rooms and corners. Had there been an actual fire, somebody would have seen it and informed the ushers or the pastor and we would have, at that time, used the myriad of exits around the building to calmly exit. The fire doors in the center and both sides of the building automatically close and lock so the Sunday School department would have had no choice but to exit to the sides and rear and the worshippers would have had to exit to the sides and to the front.
But, safety rules. Because we are all assumed to be ignorant sheep, we must all exit at the first sign of trouble, false alarm or not. There is no room for interpretation in this rule, as the fire Marshall apparently informed the pastors when the fire truck arrived, with sirens blazing. I know there are two sides to this, but I side with an intelligent response as opposed to a knee jerk reaction. We have been taught to follow so many rules these days that there is no room left for questioning why the rule is there and what its purpose is. Most of these rules are put in place 1. because there is a bureaucracy there to do so, or 2. we need to be protected from our ignorant selves, or 3. there are some stupid people that need protecting but you cannot discriminate against stupid people so you make a rule to cover everybody and thus cover the stupid ones.
I guess I am a rebel because I have no patience for stupid rules. I know I am not the only one because yesterday morning there was not a single person in church who jumped up and ran out of the building. They sat there like me and used their God given intelligence.
4 comments:
And had there been a fire and a resulting stampede and an injury or two, there would have been a lawsuit. Don't you guys have fire drills? One must always consider the lowest common denominatir when making rules. That's life.
New rule. No lawsuits allowed in church. We are there of our own free will.
I object to being treated like a lowest common demoninator.
The kids are used to fire drills from school so they had no problem evacuating immediately. I have no problem with that.
So what happened at Central Heights and their lawsuits? Isn't that a church?
The numerous lawsuits being thrown at the Central Heights Church for injuries resulting from a floor collapse is not what it sounds like. The church had liability insurance, and there was never any doubt that the victims would be compensated. It was decided early on that instead of the insurance company dealing with each case individually, they would allow it to go to litigation. There would be a more fair and comprehensive analysis of each case. That is why you keep hearing of "all the law suits". In the case of fire and any resulting issues, a good liability insurance policy should cover all the basis, just as it did with the floor collapse. However, there was some negligence on the part of the church so some of the settlements may go beyond injury compensation.
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