Two Sundays ago I was half way through my sermon when an elderly lady (96 years old) in our congregation lost consciousness. The woman sitting next to her (who happened to be a nurse) quickly layed her down on the pew and checked her vitals. She was still breathing but not responsive in any way. I quickly rushed down and proceeded to lead the congregation in prayer for the woman. As soon as we all said “Amen” she sat straight up, looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m ok.” An ambulance that was called ended up taking her to the hospital anyways to run some tests to see what had happened. I haven’t heard the results of the tests but she seems to be in fine health today.

We’ll, the story ended up getting to our local news station with a few modifications. I got a call later in the week from a reporter wanting to cover the story but instead of her being prayed for, the information she had been told was that a member of the congregation administered CPR. Also, somehow it had been reported that out of 80 people in the service only 4 knew CPR. Neither of these ‘facts’ were true. CPR played no role, and I didn’t take a poll of the congregation and ask how many people knew CPR - nor did anyone else. I told the reporter that there was no story about CPR, but she insisted on coming down and interviewing me anyways.

When she showed up I again told her the real story of what had happened that morning and that CPR wasn’t even talked about. She said she’d like to interview me on camera anyways. I thought, “Ok, if she wants me to talk about the power of God answering our prayer that morning, I’m happy to comply.” I told the story, yet again - this time on camera. After I recounted the details she asked me two questions about CPR - unrelated to the story I had just told. Slightly annoyed that she wouldn’t drop the CPR issue I answered them anyways - reflecting on why it would be good to know it since I have a 9 month old boy.

And here is the lesson learned.
I honestly thought there would be no story after I cleared up the events of the morning - unless they wanted to talk about God. I was wrong. I’ve heard stars, atheletes, and others talk about the media taking things out of context and now I’ve experienced it myself. The story did run and it was all about CPR. The only footage they used of me, was me introducing the story of what happened (omitting the prayer part) and my answer about CPR - which made it seem that the two were related. At the end or the report she said a question was posed to the congregation about who knew CPR, which was a flat out lie. No one ever asked that. You can see the newscast here - the story is at the 13:20 mark.

UPDATE: The video has been removed for some reason