Servers and Power

It’s been a long week. We’ve had issues with our server for the past couple of weeks. When our server is down, we can’t get to our documents; our Accounts Administrator can’t post earnings or get reports out; our Administrative Assistant can’t update the website. For all intents and purposes, we can’t get anything done. It seemed like a wasted week…a week in which we intended to get our quarterly statements out and get our newsletter to the printer. Now we’re behind schedule.

To top it off, yesterday the power was off in the Conference Center and in an area of downtown Charleston. The phones worked for a short time until the battery backup quit working. We have come to rely so much on computers and technology; without them, we’re spinning our wheels.
Maybe I need to rethink servers and power.

Jesus taught about servers in John 13: 12-16. “After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.”

Jesus taught about power in John 15:5. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

Perhaps this past week should be a reminder to me that I should be the server, and that my power does not come from a computer or a grid, but in staying connected to Jesus Christ.

While the power was off yesterday, I had a request for a copy of a document. “Just e-mail it as an attachment,” she said. When the electricity came on, I still couldn’t access my documents. So I opened a file—a cardboard file in a fireproof file cabinet—retrieved the document, warmed up the Xerox machine, copied it, and mailed it in an envelope with a stamp on it…such a nostalgic way of doing business.

It was a pleasure to be a "server," though.

Jeff Taylor, Guestpiper