On Getting Rusty
It's been a little more than fifteen years ago--on the evening of August 1, 2007--when the Interstate 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota suddenly collapsed during rush hour. The bridge was the second busiest in the entire state, with 140,000 vehicles crossing it every day. A total of 111 cars and trucks rode the bridge down as much as 115 feet to the surface of the water and riverbank, with 13 people killed and 145 injured. A school bus with 63 children returning from a field trip ended up resting on a guardrail at the bottom.
Drivers on the bridge recalled hearing a beam snap, followed by a loud clank. Then, they felt the bridge begin to tremble. Within seconds, they were on a rollercoaster ride they never bargained for, riding the bridge down to the river.
The collapsed bridge over the Mississippi had one cause: oxidation. Iron (in the soil and the bridge gussets) reacted chemically with oxygen and the result was a reddish product that eats and destroys that we call rust.
The process of rust may be slow and subtle, but it can be destructive. Did you know that at one point America almost lost the Statue of Liberty to corrosion? And have you ever considered the effort it takes to maintain oil pipe lines? Or have you ever thought of the enormous cost needed to beat back rust in the military, especially in the navy's ships?
Author Jonathan Waldman gives great detail to the expensive and dangerous effects of oxidation in his book Rust: The Longest War. The very title of the book reminds us that rust is an on-going battle, and something we must be conscious of and not neglect, or we will pay for it later. And most of us know what that's like, even from childhood, when we had a rusty bicycle chain after it had been left in the rain. You knew you had to oil it up and get it moving if you were going to make that bike go fast again.
We often stretch the analogy of rust and use it to refer to athletes who are coming back from an injury, or anyone who is out of practice for their particular skill. We all are prone to get "rusty" when we are inactive, or when we don't pay attention to maintenance or on-going training. And for many of us, the past few years of inactivity during the pandemic have caused a little rust to build up. Which brings us to our Shelby Crossings Training Daycoming up this Saturday, Aug. 13.
One of our core values at TCASC is that "every member is a minister." Accordingly, we believe it is important that each of us are properly equipped to give God our best in the ministries He calls us and gifts us to do. Several times in his pastoral epistles, the apostle Paul gave instructions for making sure that those in the church were properly trained. "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." (2 Tim. 2:15). He suggested that we make use of Scripture so that "that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:17) He also wrote that all of us are to "train yourselves for godliness" (1 Tim. 4:7).
It's been a while since we've had one of these training events. We had one scheduled for April, 2020, but we had to cancel because of the Covid shutdown, and it's taken more than two years to get back to planning another one. Hopefully, we haven't gotten too "rusty" over these past few years, and we will be ready to be taught and reminded of the important basics for our part in the kingdom where God allows us to serve.
I hope you can join us for at least one of our Training Day sessions. It should be a fun and encouraging time together, of both training and fellowship. There will be something for just about everyone, so if you would like to serve but don't know where to start, come and join us for doughnuts and coffee at 9:00 a.m. and we will get you plugged in.
I am praying for you, as I hope you are for me, and I look forward to seeing you Saturday...and Sunday too!
--Pastor Ken
