The Sunday Musician

All of your standard megachurches or megachurch-hopefuls go to great pains to do things according to plan. This is not just an accidentally common trait; this is what lies at the core of those who start, fund and maintain a megachurch – their belief that you don’t do anything without a plan. I’m not saying they aren’t motivated by the desire to spread the gospel, only that this is what separates them from other types. Now sit up straight and make sure you hear this: the megachurches around the country are doing enormous good. They’re introducing people to Christ, and I for one am all for that. But God bless ‘em, they do love their org. charts.

At the Big Church where I worked, we scheduled our Sunday services to the minute. The service didn’t start at around 9:00 – it started at exactly 9:00. The director up in the balcony would literally count down with his or her fingers, so that we started at the exact second. (Although I would sometimes count another ten before I started, for the thrill of getting away with it.)

We operated from a highly detailed spreadsheet that listed everything single thing that happened, who did what, what time it happened, and who was responsible. So for instance the sheet would show that the drama started at 9:17, who was in the drama, who played music behind it, what all their cues were. We would even practice walking on and off stage to make sure there were no bottlenecks.

I was not wild about this approach, but I had to admit that it did solve a lot of problems. I just have way too much let’s-skip-work-and-go-to-the-beach in me.

So one morning the worship leader finished the worship set and walked off, taking the singers with her. By this time I had grown so accustomed to all this that I didn’t check the sheet sitting on the piano to see what was coming next. I just figured when the next person walked out, I’d remember what was next. I was pretty sure the offering was next, but nothing happened.

Nothing happened for about 10 seconds, a long time onstage. (Try it once. Count to ten while pretending 650 people are looking at you.) The band looked at the audience, the audience looked at the band. We just sat there looking at each other. Another 10 seconds went past. Now I’m thinking maybe I'd better look at the sheet. I was reaching for it when Wade, the backstage manager, leaned out from behind the curtain, dressed in black and wearing a headset. My back was to him, but so close to the side curtain that he could lean over my shoulder. When he leaned out, he was in full view of the audience. I started grinning.

“Linda was supposed to announce the offering,” he said.

“But she didn’t,” I said. God help me, I lived for moments like this, when the system collapsed under its own weight.

“Right,” Wade said. The audience was starting to giggle.

“And now someone needs to announce it.”

“Right.” I think Wade was starting to giggle too.

“And it’s going to be me, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

By this time the audience was tittering in earnest, watching the confusion, watching Wade peek out from behind the curtain and talk to me. We were the whole show. I stood up, pushed the bench back, walked out to the edge of the stage, and the audience burst into applause. I did the old Johnny Carson routine, shushing them with one hand out in front of me and egging them on with the other hand down by my waist.

When things quieted down, I said loudly (I had no microphone), “Apparently there was some miscommunication.” Laughter and catcalls. “So I’m here to tell you it’s time for the offering. Ushers, now would be the right time to stand up and start passing the plates. That's right...yes...right now. The rest of you - talk amongst yourselves while I walk back to the piano, and when I get there the band will play a little something for your entertainment.”

I was a hero that week. “ED SAVED THE DAY”, staff people were literally saying. “Did you see how Ed just walked up and talked with no preparation??” Everyone talked about how it was a ‘truly genuine moment’, how I ‘connected with the audience’ and how just plain good it was for the emotional health of the church to see leaders making mistakes, showing the audience we were people too, etc.

The next thing we did was have a meeting to make sure the mistake never, ever happened again, and then another meeting to see if we could somehow plan another ‘genuine, connecting moment’ like that some time soon.

People who are new to church wonder if they measure up.  (Heck, some of us who aren't new...) Their fall-back position is that the people on the platform have it all together, and are somehow different, better and farther along than they are.  I think a lot of covering up goes on, both sides afraid to show themselves.  Then something like the above happens, and for a moment we're all in the same boat.  That's why everone cheered when I walked out to the edge of the stage - they were RELIEVED.  (I'd like to think it was one of the really great hawaiian shirts I usually wear, but that's probably not right.)