WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — After two years of not letting a pandemic prevent them from having a church service, Second New Bethel Church wasn’t letting a hole in their building put a hole in their faith.
On Easter Sunday, Pastor Melvin Aikens and his wife woke up to a phone call around 1:30 a.m. telling them someone had crashed a car into the side of the church, causing a 'major' gas leak.
"My initial thought was, something has got to be wrong. There’s no way a car can be in my church. As you can see how the church is set up everything is up high, how is the car in the church?," Pastor Aikens said.
Sure enough, when the Aikens arrived at the church they saw the car stuck in the side. What’s even worse, the car hit a gas meter causing a 'major' leak inside the building.
“The gas was pouring into the floor until they got here. This was a bomb waiting to go off and that’s why they had the streets blocked off so far,” Pastor Aikens said.
Winston-Salem Police kept the area clear for a few hours while they shut the gas off and pulled the car from the brick.
After that, Aikens and his wife could really see the damage.
The two were glad the driver was okay.
“It’s not about the church, we can get another building. But you can’t get another life. Especially on Easter when we talk about how Jesus rose from the dead, we don’t want to put anybody in the grave,” Aikens said.
Just like with the pandemic, when he held drive-thru services in the parking lot, Aikens said he wasn’t letting the crash prevent an Easter Sunday service.
“If God allowed us to live to see another day and if he allowed us to have the activity of our lives and we can breathe his air, why can’t we spend the time to go over and give him back the praises for what he’s done for us,” he said.
Instead of holding their usual drive-thru service, Pastor Aikens and his wife rushed home to stream the service live on Facebook right out of his living room.
Aikens said Monday is when the work starts. There’s still water that has flooded the inside of the church because a line was hit in the crash as well.
Aikens said he'll be letting insurance handle the damage assessment.