Incredible Truth I Learned From My Most Embarrassing Moment

Jason,

Great examples of "what I do does not equal Whose I am".

In the Gospel Primer by Cesar Kalinowski, there's a graphic behind some text on a chapter that concentrates on the very point you are making here.

DO ≠ BE.

Our identity is that we are sons and daughters of the most high God. We are not what we do. Whenever we let what we do define us, it detracts us from concentrating on God and instead we put the focus on ourselves.

Thanks for this great reminder.

I was leading a couple weeks back and the opening song was "I Will Boast" by Paul Baloche. As I attempted to transition into the 2nd song "The Rock Won't Move" my hours of practicing the acoustic part went out the door. I felt like my fingers were made of lead. I ended up stopping and I addressed the church by saying, "We need to boast in the greatness of God because as you can see we've got nothing to boast about ourselves." We all had a good laugh about it. I've come to learn that the moments when we screw up are more important for us personally then the times we nail it because it tests our character and shows us where we are focusing by how we react.

This past Sunday we also experienced a nice crash...during the first song, my floor monitor popped, squealed, then turned off...the pop-squeal making its loud presence through the mains...soon into to the first verse, the pastor signals to me that my mic isn't working...and the acoustic player isn't coming through at all...this meant all the congregation could hear was my electric (just strumming whole notes with some overdrive) and the bass...my two lead singers had backed too far off their mics after the monitor popped and scared them...we struggled through, I switched over to my acoustic and changed the way we had planned on playing the next song...by this time a member of the congregation had gone back to the board, reached over my father who I had helping me mix, and started turning knobs franticly...causing nothing but squeal every couple of seconds...my father told me later that the guy kept turning the gain up on everything to 10, then turning it all back to 0...(I'll be asking you later a question about this, heads up)...we finished that song, I prayed, trying to maintain some sense of composure and not let the frustration and helplessness show through, I cut the last song of the first set, and sat down. By the time the sermon was over, I had snuck behind the rails and unplugged everything but one mic and my acoustic...and finished with a simple song, "Centuries" by Aaron Strumpel...it ended well, and I was able to get a good laugh out of the congregation joking about it...but the big downside was looking out I could count 4 families all visiting for the first time...I found out later one of them is a sound engineer for a local radio station...they all left rather quickly and didn't look like they'd be returning...I've been playing and leading worship for years, and still have trouble maintaining my composure during moments of failing gear and failing fingers

My wife and attend a very small church where her parents pastor, and her father has asked me to step up and lead the services. Not only that, but when the piano player is gone I also lead the worship service. I have only been playing guitar for 4 years now and I still have a lot to learn. It never fails, ever time I learn a new song, the first time I sing it at the church, I mess up. However, I did have a good experience from this 2 Sundays ago. I was singing mighty to save, and I accidently mixed up the whole first verse; of course in my mind I am thinking, "train wreck!" But then as I keep going, I can't even remember how or what I did, it ended up sounding way better than when I practiced it! Ya gotta loves those moments, right? Praise God for it though, I couldn't have even gone on without His help!

A few months ago, I sang "Oceans" to introduce it to our church. We practiced and fine-tuned our arrangement to make it a beautiful, peaceful worship moment. In practice, it was very moving. When we did it in church that next Sunday, my lovely children took the (unsupervised) opportunity to jump up and down on the front steps in front of everyone. My husband couldn't grab them either because he was playing guitar. Eventually, I had to grab and hold my younger son mid-song and sing while holding him. Super embarrassing and unprofessional. Everyone said how "cute" it was afterward, but obviously just to try to make me feel better, and the worshipful attention definitely diverted. I don't know what was more scrutinized in that moment: my musicianship or my parenting. Made me re-evaluate to whom I was singing and leave my pride at the door.

I don't think Jesus has us up in front of his people to model perfection. He's got that taken care of himself. :-)

If people leave a worship service remembering the musicians and not the musicians' Lord, something has gone horribly wrong. I suspect Jesus gets far more glory from a broken vessel who laughs at their mistakes secure in the knowledge that they are deeply loved by their God, then in a thousand perfect guitar solos.

I certainly hate messing up, and I'm absolutely committed to striving for excellence in Christ service. But even I don't remember the songs we did just last Sunday. I vividly remember, however, the guitarist six years ago who couldn't play through his tears as the reality of the words we were singing hit him, and he was overcome with Christ's love. For him it was probably a painfully embarrassing moment. For me the Spirit of God was suddenly very real and very close.

There is some Puritan-type story of a young man who was preaching his first sermon. He worked and worked at it and he was certain that he was going to preach the greatest sermon. He went up to the pulpit with the look of confidence, if not pomp. He was a trainwreck (OK, bad metaphor, no trains back then). Then red-faced, embarrassed, with countenance fallen, he approached one of the elders. The Elder responded, "My son, if you had ascended to the pulpit the way that you came down, you might have come down the way that you came up.

This very thing happened to me.