Sick Worship

http://bit.ly/1yto0eE

A story of what happened.

A: the down side: I was leading the worship set; sick, a fever, snotty sinus and all.  My mind was muddy, the team was minimalist (guitar, drum, and two singers), and we had no-one on the mixing desk to do a proper sound check - everyone else in the team was away.  The congregation was down on numbers as has been the case in recent weeks (Is it the start of summer?  Where are people?  Why is church seemingly an option to be weighed against other weekend opportunities?). 

I fluffed the start by beginning on the wrong song, then doubled the error by starting the next song in an un-singable key because I forgot to take off the guitar capo.  By the end I was struggling to hold a note, my hand on the guitar neck was slipping, and I could feel the beads of sweat dripping down the side of my face.  I was getting stubborn, saying to myself "I'm just gonna do this". 

Then along came communion.  I didn't know we were going to have communion!  I hadn't prepared any songs to go with communion.

When all was said and done it was hard to gauge the value, other than the value of making a choice: "I will worship even if I don't feel like it".

B: the up side: Like the marriage vows go - "In sickness and in health".  We committed, we served, we worshipped.  I don't know about the others, but I really felt like I had had a valuable time focused on God.  (Some) people in the congregation did sing.  One mentioned afterwards the power of the words - and when one typically receives no feedback (unless its negative) this is a really positive response!  I felt like discipline was there, and that while I could have been depressed I was instead uplifted.  Who cares if it was low quality ... like an old low cost cell phone that barely works, one without the smart-phone features, the message still came through.  Does it matter that the cell phone was barely functional?  Nope!  Does it matter that the church was not full?  Not to my worship of God it doesn't! 

Because it all starts with my attitude.  I need to kneel down first before I can ask anyone else to kneel.

C: The middle side:  Of course, who knows how long I will remember this lesson.