I grew up in a family of preachers. You couldn’t swing an offering plate in my house without hitting a man of the cloth. I knew early on that I was going to bring down the average of preachers in our family by quite a bit because I just didn’t have the gift. I remember the first time I was called on to say a prayer in front of the whole church. It went something like this: “God uh…bless uuuuhhhh...merica, ‘tis of thee….unto the republic…uh…(faster) guard, guide and direct us, Amen”. I threw that part about guard, guide and direct us in because it was always said in other people's prayers so I knew I had to say it for my prayer to be official. Needless to say, I tried to stay as far away from the pulpit as possible. Except of course when church was over and someone left the mic on. Then it was cool.
I must have been in junior high when I started perfecting my “dodge the speaker so I wouldn’t have to pray technique". See, on Sunday mornings I was safe because the elders had to turn in the service batting order and after that there were NO SUBSTITUTIONS! It was Sunday nights and Wednesday nights that I was in danger. It was sort of like “open mic night”. Anyone could be called on. There was no set order. They could sing 2 songs then a prayer, or do the prayer first and then 3 songs. IT WAS TOTAL CHAOS (my emphasis added). I think Wed nights were what Paul was talking about in 1 Cor when he said our worship should have order. It was a no holds barred, free-for-all nightmare that was not for the faint of heart (and apparently our church had lots of folks that were faint of heart because Wed nights were pretty empty). That’s when I discovered the art of “sitting behind people with big heads so I wouldn’t have to pray”. This worked well if you sat towards the middle and constantly shifted back and forth with the person in front of you. I learned the hard way that you still had to obstruct the speaker’s vision (earlier translations use hide) even during the closing song. If you got caught up in your favorite verse of “Just As I Am” you could lose focus and get picked off like turkeys in a barrel. For the record my favorite verse of “Just As I Am” is verse 23. After a while I got tired of ducking and diving like Muhammad Ali so I had to adjust my tactics. This ushered in my “act like you’re taking notes so you can avoid eye contact…so I wouldn’t have to pray” period. This method, by the way, works well for the only unknown variable of the Sunday morning worship. That’s the part when they look for communion helpers. Seems there is always a rash of sick aunts during hunting season. This is how much I didn’t like being in front of people. I couldn’t even go up and down the aisles handing upside down metal Frisbees back and forth to people. I would lay awake at night envisioning dropping the plates or getting them out of order (if anyone is wondering the bread always goes before the cup. I learned that one the hard way). The thing that I feared most of all though was missing a row completely. What if the world ended before church was over? I had these poor unfortunate church-going people’s immortal souls in my little sweat-soaked hands. These poor people would get up to heaven and not get in over a technicality. They would be surrounded by thieves and murders who ask them why they didn't get into heaven. They would have to answer like this: Demon 1: "Well, can you believe it? This guy missed our row completely during communion. Who would do that to poor unfortunate church-going people?" Demon 2: "Yeah, there was always something wrong with that kid. He was always moving his head back and forth in church, he would never make eye contact with you and his hands were always sweaty. What was his name again?" Demon 1: "You know what? I can't remember. Come to think of it, I don't think I even knew his name because for some reason he never had to say a prayer in church...ever."
No comments:
Post a Comment