The Rev Ian Barnett, senior minister at Figtree Anglican Church, has planned and run grand-scale carols events for the past three years, two them at his former post at St Paul's Anglican Church Castle Hill. While the sun has shone on two of these events, last year's carols was washed out and 300 cars were hail damaged after a storm broke during the final volunteers planning meeting a week beforehand.

This week, Ian gives sydneyanglicans.net his insights on outdoor carols events, and explains how he guided his team pastorally through disappointment when the rain came down.

You are obviously very encouraged after this year's carols event, which was a big success with 5000 people coming along. Last year at St Paul's, Castle Hill there were hopes and plans for a similar event, but it was a different experience with heavy rain throughout the day and night of the carols. How are you personally making sense of that one year on?

I think fundamentally one has to believe in the sovereignty of God. In the sovereignty of God, for some reason, 300 cars got hail damaged last year at Castle Hill. I don't know why. But in the sovereignty of God, what I also saw last year at St Paul's was hundreds of people in their blue shirts serving faithfully.

So it highlights to me that we're called to be faithful " we don't determine the outcome. The blessing is actually in serving and the blessing is in trusting God. And if we get the third blessing in actually pulling it off, that's wonderful, and if we don't, we've grown anyhow. We need to have an adventurous spirit to do those things but we also need to be faithful. God knows why he does what he does with the weather.

So one of those lessons was don't give up, don't be disappointed when things don't work out, which I think, the book of Ruth captures. You can be faithful in the ordinary circumstances of life, and in the book of Ruth, you can see from chapter one, Naomi's life didn't turn out the way she thought it would. But she was still called to be faithful and to trust in God and I think that's what we're always called to do.

While the weather was good on the day this year, the day beforehand it rained consistently. As a leader of a large group of people praying for and working towards a wonderful event, how do you pastorally prepare people when you're not sure yourself what the weather will do?

I think leaders have to demonstrate a confidence and profound hope in God because that's where Scripture drives us. The Lord we follow calls us to be hopeful. Even Hebrews 12 talks about that: "For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross'. Well for the joy set before us we endure the rain!

I keep saying to our people as we lead them, "Guys, we're called to be hopeful, we're called to live by faith. And we're called to really have a taste of heaven with each other but also to call others to have a taste of heaven'. I think ongoing encouragement, ongoing visioncasting is important, that no matter whether it rains or not, we will learn from this and we will be better and stronger for it.

And God willing He will hold the rain back. Therefore it shapes your prayer life, it shapes your confidence in your prayers. Do you really believe that God can bring the rain on and hold it back? For me it is encouraging people, speaking openly about it, reminding people that you don't control the weather, but that no matter what, you go forward with an adventurous spirit and you ask people to come with you.

And time and time again I've seen this, no matter what church I'm in: People want to follow. They still want to have a profound belief that what they do will make a difference to someone. And at things like carols events, people do literally get a chance to make a difference to someone's life. And so I think for all those involved in church, leaders have to realise that and tap into that, and with confidence, go ahead.

As you've been preparing for these big outdoor events, what are the practical things you feel have been most important to consider from an organiser's point of view?

I think practically you need to make sure firstly that you speak about it " what happens if it doesn't happen? Have you thought about an alternative venue you could go to? Is it available on the day? We had a Plan B, we had a large auditorium that we could use, and generally Plan B would have to fall into effect either on the day or close to the day.

And plan B might be the courage to say, "it's cancelled'. Even if that's the second plan, at least you've thought about it. So when you're holding outdoor events you have to realise that you are subject to the weather. So don't be naïve, don't have blind optimism. Realise that the weather does do all sorts of things, and pray about that.

And if you do cancel, let people know straight away on the day " put some people out the front of the event letting people know or let the local radio stations know that it's not on: get the word out really quickly. 

Ask those questions well before the event so that you have a plan and it won't be a surprise when you get to the day. Why should you do that? Because it does involve money, it does involve parish councils, it does involve leaders, it does involve your people. And if you want them to follow you, you need to apply some wisdom.

Last year you had to apply that wisdom when the weather turned bad on the day. Can you briefly take us through what happened, and the decisions you made leading up to and on that day?

Last year, the weather was pretty erratic leading up to the event. There were good days and there were bad days and on the bad days it really did pour. So it did make the ground a lot softer. But because I kept in close contact with our neighbour (the school where we held the carols) they were willing to let it go ahead. So on the day, it was fine to start with, but then the clouds opened later in the day and dampened the whole event, and then it poured throughout the night.

There was a safety issue, so we had to be aware of the safety for our people and those who would come, and we had people involved from an occupational health and safety standard point of view who were telling us "it's still ok'. But we had to be aware of all the sound people because of all the power that was on stage, it actually could have been dangerous. I was in close contact with them, and when they said it had got to that point where it's too dangerous, I said "OK, that's done'. We had Dean Geyer come up and sing and that was it. People packed up and went home. So it's being aware of how far you can go in those conditions.

Our plan B sadly on that site was just to can it because we didn't have any capacity to go to a large venue. Our church at Castle Hill couldn't take thousands in it. We spoke about whether we'd do some stuff inside and have screens outside, but we thought that for us that wouldn't work.

How did you cope with that on the day as a leader?

There was certainly a sense of disappointment. I would have thought with all the planning we'd done, it would have been one of the best carols ever, because of the crowd beforehand. I think as a leader, I was called to put on a brave face, even though I might have carried personal disappointment, which I obviously did.

But the profound joy in my spirit that 450 people turned up to serve" I don't know how to describe how that blew me away. That in itself brought incredible encouragement and affirmation to me. That there were all those people out there laughing and smiling, serving together, getting wet. I'd like to think that touched the hearts and minds of members of our church that night.

How did you pastorally did you lead the church through that disappointment after so much buildup?

I think the key was reminding people that we are always in God's hands. I find the Psalms really helpful in that way. And we've got to keep realising that we actually keep coming back to a God who is sovereign, and it's actually never about us. So I said to our people who were wondering, "what does this mean, wasn't God in this?', that I don't think that was true.

Pastorally I think encouraging these people and thanking them, and asking them what did they get out of serving, what did they learn from it? When I asked that of the Castle Hill people last year, they said things like, "oh it was fantastic, all our people were there, we were all enjoying ourselves and it was great to be serving alongside one another with people we don't normally see, because we all go to different services.' It just brought so much wet joy!

And just encouraging people to realise that life in all its ordinariness does have its good days and its bad days. It does go up and down. But because it's a down day, it doesn't mean that our response to that down day is a response of negativity. Look around you, there's 450 volunteers here! And these are all volunteers who had their cars hail damaged the week before! Where else would you rather be?

And I had people say to me they had such a wonderful night, in fact I had people say it was their best night of being part of church. They were outside, they were soaking wet and they were loving it. Now all I can say is that the spirit of God was doing a wonderful work, and maybe sometimes when things like that happen, God is wanting to teach us more than those we are trying to reach. So I try to draw people back into Scripture, remind them of the reality of Scripture, remind them of the reality of the ups and downs of life.

I suppose I'd conclude it with Jonah 4 when God says to Jonah, "Jonah, shouldn't I also be concerned for all these people in this city?' Now if I have that heart as a leader, that has implications. The implications are that I'll actually invite my people be part of daring to change the world, and trusting that God in his sovereignty will produce change that we don't even know about.

While I might humanly think 10,000 people will come out, God might actually think "there are three people from my elect that I need to get from this crowd. God is on about his harvest, and he's on about bringing in more and more, and we're called to do whatever we can to do that.

Despite the rain last year, you pushed forward with your plans for carols this year. What is it about this kind of event that makes it worth the investment, the effort, and indeed the risk?

Because I think for Australia, there's nothing like being outside. When the night ended, we could see the stars in the sky, we could see the expanse of the sky, and there I am on the platform in my yellow shirt talking about the meaning of Christmas, and all around us are things that point to a God outside of ourselves, to a God who is a creator God.

There's something magical about being outside and serving faithfully. That's why when I talk to non-Christians, they love their barbeques, they love being outside at the beach, they love being at the park. I think we as Christians try to do too much in a building, and there's only limited opportunities for us it seems to do things outside. A carols event where you're out in the expanse and you're talking about Jesus, I just don't think it gets any better than that. I could be unique and weird, I accept that!

Watching families come and set their tables up and they set their blankets up and coming together as a community, you just think "wow, this is how it should be'. For me, it's literally a taste of heaven outside. In the beginning, where were Adam and Eve? Well the Bible tells me they were in a garden, they were outside enjoying all that was around them, and I think there is just something unique about that.

So when we got to the Friday we thought, "well it's a bit damp but we're confident it will still go on, so we put the stage on site and it was. And if I look at the week as a whole, Saturday was the best day to do it. There's no real answer to the question of "Why didn't it pour on Saturday?'. God obviously wanted it to go ahead this year. Last year he had other lessons he wanted us to learn,

Of all the events in the church calendar, why put the effort into Carols?

I think primarily it helps churches own probably the major event of the year, being Christmas and carols. When I personally sing carols, every song reminds me of what Christ has done, and I personally stop and think of what we sing. They are just very profound.

I think it's also a time when we can primarily make one of the greatest connections with our communities. We can reconnect with those who we haven't seen throughout the year, we can bring our friends along, we can serve the community, we can literally remind them of the reason for the season. And I think only Christians can do that. Non-Christians certainly can hold an event like that but I don't think they bring out the true meaning.

For me, I think it also allows large numbers of your people to get involved in an event, when during the year they may not have had the chance to do that. So it certainly increases the capacity for people to serve and take ownership of what the church is doing. You get a chance to rub shoulders with each other, you get a chance to encourage each other, you get a chance to work together to pull off something together.

I know there is a dollar figure there, but even it costs $30-40,000 overall, the benefit for us in working together, the benefit longterm in being out in the community, money can't buy that. And I think personally, I've always just believed that it's great fun.