5/08/2006

Keyboarding & Praise Band: Another Night Leading

Keyboarding & Praise Band: Another Night Leading:

I led praise band last night. It was a trip.

The band I started with had two people who worked at the same plant and an emergency came up = Replace two guitarists.

One normal drummer working, the other out of town=new drummer (who I later learned wasn't acclimated to 3/4 time yet....note to self).

I swapped two songs out of the set just before warm up, eliminated one they'd already done that AM, got rid of a hymn they couldn't figure out and didn't know "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand"...I thought every Baptist knew that one!

Singers unavailable left and right this week= building a band from scratch can be a high challenge.

I begged the overtaxed minister of music to duet with me on vocals. We enjoyed a guitar led service with electric, austotic, and bass. No keyboards. I decided I wasn't going to try to play and lead at the same time this time just to see how that felt. I enjoyed it, except need to memorize better the the order within songs I plan to do next time to make things less stressful for me.

The toner was out of ink in the church copier for last minute copies. Fortunately, I was able to get the office unlocked--fifteen minutes after I started=feeling of chaos.

My pen was out of ink, my pencil lead broken=feeling of disorganization.

By the time the service started, I had so much brain haze I could hardly get out an intelligible comment! I said some flip flopped phrase mixing up words...the every so funny AV guys repeated it on my viewer screens for me. So funny! They have a way of getting us to laugh at ourselves. I love our tech people.

I'm used to playing the songs, not singing them=I realized that a couple songs were so low for my vocal range that I had a hard time lead harmonizing. "All Bow Down" seemed SO low. Days of Elijah seemed a lot lower than usual, too. I guess when I'm more nervous, my range narrows. Good time to find that out!

We'd started practice later than usual, trying to give people needed rest, but I won't start later than 4:30 from here on out. 5 practice for a 6 service was nuts. Somebody pop me for that one.

Anyway, God's grace prevailed, I didn't stress too much all week, and we stayed flexible, so all's well!

What is it about leading a worship service that drains a person SO MUCH the day after? You get the shakes after coming off adrenaline I guess? So weird every time. I don't know how seasoned leaders just keep going. Very impressive.

2 comments:

Vessel said...

God knows our weaknesses and strenghths and uses us in spite of them. The important thing is not whether or not we have weaknesses, but what we do with them. If we deny, excuse or hide them, we prevent God from doing what He desires in and through us. As he wants to use our strengths for His glory, so He wants to use our weaknesses.

Joan said...

Wow, Jules. That was DEEP. Reminds me of a devotion in Ruth Myers 31 Days of Praise I need to reread rather often. I highly recommend that book.

Thanks for the centering comment.