Lend an EarI sang a special at church yesterday. If you know me, you know that I don't like All Eyes Upon ME. I'm prone to doing stupid, awkward, and embarassing things. That's fine in front of a friend or two, but a crowd? No thanks. But amazingly, getting on stage has not bothered me for years. Don't get me wrong, it used to make me break out in hives and send me running to the bathroom afterwards. However, years ago, B.C. said one thing that actually stuck with me. I don't remember the actual words he used, but what the Holy Spirit said to my heart afterwards...I do not get on stage to sound good to other people. I get on stage to glorify God. To lead people into worship. I'm singing praises to God and for God. To be nervous and so conscious of how well I "perform" is a sin and has no business being up on stage. If it's about me, it doesn't need to be up there.
Yesterday failed this. I woke up late, Chris had a horrid migraine (his first) so I had to get all the kids ready by myself. I sat down and sang on song and was prepared to sing 4 more before my turn was up. I love having the worship service done first. For practical purposes, it gives singers a chance to warm their voices up. But also, it gives me a chance to let go of my morning and give it to God. I have a chance to enter into a worshipful frame of mind and to pray. But yesterday, we sang one song, shook hands and sat down. I began to chatter with my mom and midsentence heard "Beth and Jennifer....." Huh? Oops. Guess who didn't read her bulletin? I managed to make it up to the stage but my legs were shaking violently. My mom said she couldn't see it, but I don't know how it wasn't visible. On my way up to the stage, it occured to me that I hadn't remembered my deodorant (aaaaack!) and that I had forgotten to wear nursing pads (double aaaaack!) and I just knew that I would have 4 wet rings on my upper body before the song ended.
I made it through the song. But that's just it. I sang a song. I was able to focus and pray and praise for small portions here and there, but the rest was just a song. I really hate that.
On a high note though: We have an awesome youth pastor/worship leader. The reason my special was at the beginning of the worship service is that Roy rearranged the service order so that specials don't interrupt the flow of worship entering into the sermon. oooh- good idea. He just really knows what he's doing and he has a heart for God and communicating God's love to these kids. He's good. Looking back on my brief stint with youth pastoring, I'm amazed none of our youth committed suicide. We truly tried and a lot of prayer went into it, but we didn't have a clue what we were doing. I just pray God protected them from being too messed up under our teaching.
1 comment:
Not to take away from the main point of your blog, but don't even worry about your youth pastoring time. I'm sure anything that happened in that time can't top my experience in a youth group when we lived in Jacksonville, NC. Feel free to delete this later for the profanity, but a youth leader of mine told me she thought of me as -I quote- a 'tight ass'. Oh yes, this is right - the pastor's daughter, my youth leader called me this because I felt uncomfortable that people swore in youth group, and picked on other kids, and other lovely things. So don't sweat it!
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