Have you ever taken pride in a project or event only for it to go horribly wrong? I’ve been working on this series on humility since my sabbatical in October. I’ve been in prayer, reading every scripture that has humility or humble in them, meditating and memorizing those scriptures, reading ancient authors and recent books on humility, and of course mapping out this series for us. I was excited and still am about the journey of humility that we were about to take.
Then the water main broke on Friday. Our plumbing company was not able to come and fix the water main which caused the water in the main building to be shut off. As a result we made the decision not to have Sunday School but only worship on Sunday. Since the bathrooms outside the Fellowship Hall were working, we could have switched worship to the Fellowship Hall. However we do not have the livestream set up in the Fellowship Hall and we knew that some people would stay home because of the lack of access to restrooms in the building. Out of this logic we decided to stay in the sanctuary for access to the livestream so that people could worship at home with us. Two minutes into the service, our livestream server crashed. Then on top of it all, my usually reliable cordless headset microphone decided not to work. Before the service I put in new batteries to the headset. Turns out there was a receiver box that had somehow gotten unplugged on stage.
I pride myself on making sure that in the worship service at least, the details are done with a pursuit of excellence. We of course make mistakes, and are sometimes short sighted in our planning. We also know that we cannot please everybody with our offering/performance (and nor do I try to anymore – we have an audience of One). Yet all of those details were out of whack on Sunday to nobody’s fault. They were simply out of our control. Yet it was still frustrating to pour energy and effort into something and for the results to be less than what you wanted in your mind.
Then something amazing happened. Someone responded with tears in her eyes. She was touched by the message and the hospitality our church has shown her and her family. The Spirit was moving in her and she rededicated her life to Christ. In the midst of all that chaos, God was stirring in someone’s heart.
It was a good reminder for me that a changed life is not the result of my or the worship team’s performance. Changed lives are done only by the work of God alone. For this pastor, preaching on humility, Sunday was a lesson in humility.
Thanks for sharing this, Ray. What a beautiful reminder of God’s grace (incongruous & effective). What is it about pastoring that makes us need these type of lessons so frequently? On second thought, don’t answer.
Hope you join us for coffee in Brentwood on Saturday!