I originally started all this Y2K research because of what I saw happening at my local church. The leadership had come under the influence of some of the doomsayers and extremists. I attended a Y2K meeting in 1998, and in that meeting, it was a foregone conclusion that we would have no electricity for weeks. There was not even any discussion.

What really motivated me to get to work is that many people were planning on spending a lot of money on things like generators, batteries, solar converters, alcohol stoves, etc. All of these decisions were made on the premise that Y2K would knock out power for weeks if not months.

I would not be surprised of Y2K has an effect on our economy. Many people that know more than I do are predicting a slowdown, and possibly even a recession. Well, if there is going to be a shortage of money, the last thing you want to do is waste it! I became very concerned that the church was giving out exactly the wrong advice.

The church took years to recover from the credibility gap that was created by scandals in religious broadcasting. They made it much more difficult for us to tell the unbelieving world that there is a Savior who died to give us eternal life. Now I think that the church is in serious danger of creating a new credibility gap - if we are sounding the alarm about a catastrophic Y2K breakdown, and we are stockpiling food and water, and we act like the power failure is a foregone conclusion, how will we look come Jan 1, 2000, if none of these things happen? We will have opened a new credibility gap with the unbelivers and the unchurched.

A very bright friend of mine, Jim Howell, has written a paper titled, "Three reasons the devil does not want Y2K to be a problem." I think the whole idea is very interesting. If the church is wrong about the coming Y2K disaster, then why should anyone belive us about the coming of Jesus Christ?

To make matters worse, our message is already being twisted and distorted. The cover of Time magazine on January 18, 1999 showed a Y2K fanatic, holding up a cross and wearing a religious robe, scaring the heck out of the public, wearing a sign about the end of the world.

Do we want to be seen as the fanatics who turn out to be wrong? Or do we want to be careful, rational thinkers who are the guardians of truth?

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