One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13 (released in 1995) which starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, and Gary Sinise. The film depicts astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission. Three days after being launched (April 11, 1970) one of the spacecraft's liquid oxygen tank's exploded causing significant damage to the command module Odyssey which was carrying the three astronauts. This forced NASA to abort the moon landing mission and turn it into a rescue mission to get the three astronauts back home safely.
In order to survive and to give NASA time to come up with a plan to get the Odyssey back home to earth, the astronauts moved into the lunar module Aquarius which was attached to Odyssey. Finally, once a plan was conceived, the astronauts transitioned back into Odyssey, restarted her engines, jettisoned Aquarius, and plotted a course for earth. As the Odyssey re-entered earth's atmosphere no one was sure that her heat shield which had been heavily damaged in the explosion was even still intact. To make matters even worse, communication between NASA and Odyssey was lost for six minutes during re-entry causing many to believe the heat shield had failed and the astronauts had perished. But then to the relief of all, the long silence was broken by Astronaut Jack Swigert confirming the crew had indeed survived and was safely home.
So, why write about this? How might the Apollo 13 story benefit us? Once the Odyssey crew received their new flight plan which included a 500 point checklist they needed to run through in order to get back home to earth alive they began working the plan. When facing the dreadful proposition that the heat shield could fail at any moment during re-entry causing them to be burned alive they kept working the plan. And even during the long drawn out period of silence when they could no longer hear encouragement or instructions from Mission Control they just kept working the plan. They didn't question or argue about the plan. They didn't have time to do that. They didn't debate it, discuss it, vote on it, worship it, or memorialize it. They just worked it and it got them home safe!
Probably not a bad idea for us as Christians and Churches too. We have the plan--we just need to work it!
So, why write about this? How might the Apollo 13 story benefit us? Once the Odyssey crew received their new flight plan which included a 500 point checklist they needed to run through in order to get back home to earth alive they began working the plan. When facing the dreadful proposition that the heat shield could fail at any moment during re-entry causing them to be burned alive they kept working the plan. And even during the long drawn out period of silence when they could no longer hear encouragement or instructions from Mission Control they just kept working the plan. They didn't question or argue about the plan. They didn't have time to do that. They didn't debate it, discuss it, vote on it, worship it, or memorialize it. They just worked it and it got them home safe!
Probably not a bad idea for us as Christians and Churches too. We have the plan--we just need to work it!
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