Have you ever had one of those moments? A moment that you are not sure is embarrassing, humorous, or instructive? Maybe all of the above.
We had one of those Sundays at church the other day.
Here is the run down. We have no worship leader and the pianist called in sick. That means that the music portion of the worship service that had been planned all week was out the window.
That’s o.k. we’ll just go to plan B. I have some worship songs that our pianist recorded for just such a predicament. All we have to do is plug in my laptop, arrange the songs and it is like having a virtual pianist.
So, I scramble around to get that arranged, fix the power point lyrics, and get the sound system hooked up. This took place just in the nick of time.
It took a while, but eventually we got things in place by overcoming a few small computer glitches along the way. Should go smooth from here….not.
We get ready to begin the service and the songs won’t play. I don’t know what happened but the files would not open and play the way they had just minutes before. All that played was the “Microsoft” start up tune. “What a friend we have in Microsoft…”
Oh boy, here we go.
So, lets greet one another and see if we can’t fix the problem. I run to the back where the equipment is being run by two of my faithful youth. It clearly was not their fault, it was some technical issue.
We get it fixed and the next portion goes a little better. The music does well and we get through it all right.
But that’s not all. After a small break in the flow of the service it is time for the next song. The only problem is that the next song starts at about 4 times normal speed. It sounded like the Chipmunks music. The guys tried about 3 times before it fixed itself and went back to normal. Somehow we recover.
Could it get any worse? Oh yes.
We have one last song before the sermon. This is a song that I intentionally included to help us focus and prepare for the message. The song is titled, “Jesus draw me close”.
The music starts and instead of the beautiful piano arrangement we hear the beginning chords of the 1970’s disco dance tune “That’s The Way, Uh Uh, I Like It”. Picture that for a moment. I will pause so you can laugh, or cry.
You might be wondering, how did that get into a worship service? Well, the piano music was being played from the media player on my laptop. I have a fairly large and eclectic music collection on my laptop. I have some Chris Tomlin, Keith Green, Christmas music, Elvis, Beach Boys, Disney songs, classical, and some 1970’s dance tunes. Yes, that is right. The girls and I like to boogie to some dance tunes every now and then. Don’t worry, we close the blinds real tight so no one can see.
So, somehow, and I still don’t know how, our piano music was interrupted with the beginning chords of some disco music and I wasn’t even wearing bell bottoms.
We had a guest preacher and the sermon was great. The rest of the service was uneventful, the damage had already been done. Although, the next time some inquires about what kind of music we have at our church I am not sure what I will tell them.
Is there a lesson here? I don’t know. I just know it will be a time of worship that I will never forget.
We had one of those Sundays at church the other day.
Here is the run down. We have no worship leader and the pianist called in sick. That means that the music portion of the worship service that had been planned all week was out the window.
That’s o.k. we’ll just go to plan B. I have some worship songs that our pianist recorded for just such a predicament. All we have to do is plug in my laptop, arrange the songs and it is like having a virtual pianist.
So, I scramble around to get that arranged, fix the power point lyrics, and get the sound system hooked up. This took place just in the nick of time.
It took a while, but eventually we got things in place by overcoming a few small computer glitches along the way. Should go smooth from here….not.
We get ready to begin the service and the songs won’t play. I don’t know what happened but the files would not open and play the way they had just minutes before. All that played was the “Microsoft” start up tune. “What a friend we have in Microsoft…”
Oh boy, here we go.
So, lets greet one another and see if we can’t fix the problem. I run to the back where the equipment is being run by two of my faithful youth. It clearly was not their fault, it was some technical issue.
We get it fixed and the next portion goes a little better. The music does well and we get through it all right.
But that’s not all. After a small break in the flow of the service it is time for the next song. The only problem is that the next song starts at about 4 times normal speed. It sounded like the Chipmunks music. The guys tried about 3 times before it fixed itself and went back to normal. Somehow we recover.
Could it get any worse? Oh yes.
We have one last song before the sermon. This is a song that I intentionally included to help us focus and prepare for the message. The song is titled, “Jesus draw me close”.
The music starts and instead of the beautiful piano arrangement we hear the beginning chords of the 1970’s disco dance tune “That’s The Way, Uh Uh, I Like It”. Picture that for a moment. I will pause so you can laugh, or cry.
You might be wondering, how did that get into a worship service? Well, the piano music was being played from the media player on my laptop. I have a fairly large and eclectic music collection on my laptop. I have some Chris Tomlin, Keith Green, Christmas music, Elvis, Beach Boys, Disney songs, classical, and some 1970’s dance tunes. Yes, that is right. The girls and I like to boogie to some dance tunes every now and then. Don’t worry, we close the blinds real tight so no one can see.
So, somehow, and I still don’t know how, our piano music was interrupted with the beginning chords of some disco music and I wasn’t even wearing bell bottoms.
We had a guest preacher and the sermon was great. The rest of the service was uneventful, the damage had already been done. Although, the next time some inquires about what kind of music we have at our church I am not sure what I will tell them.
Is there a lesson here? I don’t know. I just know it will be a time of worship that I will never forget.
2 comments:
"the damage had already been done" (?)
What damage?
That was one of the best worship services I have ever been in!
Oh, that all of us would discard our stuffy preconceptions regarding the "acceptable" worship of God, and recognize that He - unlike some of us - has a sense of humor...
After all, He made Aggies, didn't He?
Bryan
p.s. Tell Jim if that other church doesn't want him to preach for them, we will put him on retainer as a "backup" for FBCS.
Hilarious... was pretty sure if I concentrated hard enough I could borrow Harry Potter's invisibility cloak and slink out unnoticed. One for the books for sure!!!
kbr
Post a Comment