When I'm not going to class or working at a restaurant, I work with Living Hope in Palos Heights, a 6-month old church plant.
I have two basic functions at LH, college pastor and assistant worship leader (not a real title, but a function). The latter role consists of consulting with the pastor, helping select songs, creating a service flow, leading the band, and leading all of this during service.* These are all things I did at Judson as a worship arts major, so I didn't think there would be any problem transferring these skills to LH.
I was wrong.
Over the past few days I was working on the order for this coming Sunday. This is the first time I've done this at LH, and the first time I've tried it alone in a while. Calling Elissa, the other assistant worship leader, I tried to tell her what I had so far. She helped me think through things, but I was still hitting walls. We decided it'd be fine.
At band practice that night, we, nay, I had no service order ready. Then when the band was there, we/I didn't really have a tight rein on the rehearsal. So by the end, it seemed like the whole experience just didn't go that well. I had tried to do it all, but really did nothing well.
*sigh* I thought the process would be much easier. I thought there would be no problem from beginning to end. And, I thought that if things got out of control, Pastor would jump in and bail us out. Well, it was difficult, there were problems, and he respectfully let us fall on our faces.
It was awesome.
I was talking to Elissa and Mary Beth afterwards and shared that it was a really humbling experience. I really couldn't do what I thought I could do, at least not on command. And it was even worse because I was allowed to fall.
But I did learn from it. I learned how much work Pastor does each week just on the service. I learned that it is a difficult process. I learned that I need to step up my game. I learned that I need to exhibit more confidence, and before that I may need to gain confidence. I learned a lot.
Anyone else have any fails lately? I would like to have guest bloggers for the fail series. It'll be healthy.
*Of course, this couldn't be done without Elissa's help. Had to put that out there.
5 comments:
At least it was humbling, rather than mortifying, you know?
I'm trying to think of Fail's i've had so far this year. I know there are many that are interesting and inspirational. I'll have to get back to you.
In the meantime, here's my not so deep fail: http://halfdesertedphotos.blogspot.com/2009/02/infamous-cupcakes.html THE WORST CUPCAKES EVER.
My list of fails could take over your entire blog...
- failed at saving my friend from herself and from getting beaten
- failed at forgiving myself from that failure
- failed at articulating how my faith leads me to a life of being single - and that just happened two days ago, darn it.
I'm just gonna' stop now.
Hey Dan!
Just stumbled on to your blog and happy I did.
I feel like I’ve had a similar fail like that at least once a month in worship leading.
-Didn’t spend enough time planning
-Finding out that my band (and inevitably the congregation) doesn’t know the songs I picked- at rehearsal.
-Forgetting to schedule offering
-Forgetting to schedule communion!
-Blabbering like an idiot in front of my congregation trying to figure out what I’m saying when I should have thought about it and written it down….
-Re-starting songs…
Lord have mercy. I have failed so many times. Praise God that worship is not completely dependent on worship leaders.
Dig into your friend, though—planning by yourself stinks.
Hey... I know you don't remember the service once it's happened :) But I think God took our fail and made it great. I think this Sunday was pretty powerful. Sure, there were loose ends here and there (and I need a metronome built into the top of my hand), but people were really worshipping with us and God was so glorified!
We are not the only ones in control. I love that He picks up our pieces...
Lauren - I love the cupcakes! I would count those as a win. :)
Anders - Are you taking those fails and doing something with them, or just stockpiling them?
Jean - Yeah! It sucks doesn't it? btw, laughed pretty hard at forgetting communion. That's pretty awesome. :) Yeah, the team thing is good, for sure! Oh, and we had a serious song restart a week ago. It was "Your love is amazing" at like... 4x the speed, lol. Imagine that...
Elissa - you're right. Somehow, it all went well. Experiences like that make me sit back and say, "Hm... maybe He does have it all in his hands after all."
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