Everyone has a crap day once in a while; you might be one of those very unfortunate people who has many, many crap days and if you do then I can empathise! Recently however things have been going rather well so this has been something of a step back. Everything started going wrong after the service I was taking part in; generally there are congregation members who will give feedback to me (whether or not they do this on purpose or not doesn’t matter, it is always without fail), today there was nothing, or at least very little. Now while affirmation from man is not what I live for, infact it is something that was drilled out of me not so long ago, when you are a student it is nice to get critical feedback as to whether or not you did well or whether or not you did badly.
While I have had a little good feedback, others I have spoken to have done the very wishy washy thing and not really committed to anything. This doesn’t bode well. I had a lot of responsibility today with organising and leading everything, to be honest I knew I’d cocked up when I realised I’d forgotten to check who was doing the offering. That was when the rest of it flooded in, should have done the prayers later in the service, forgot this, rushed through that, this wasn’t nearly as tight as it could have been… Then I got over myself. This wasn’t about me, this was about service and this was about serving God. I did the best that I could and considering I’m still learning (aren’t we all!) I think I did a fairly good job.
The lesson I have learnt? Don’t succumb in any way to requiring the approval or the admiration of men and women. It rips you apart! However there’s no need to feel guilty if you do feel you haven’t done something quite right, there’s also no need to feel guilty about feeling bad! We’re human, fallen and fallible. However we’re ultimately redeemed by the saving blood of Christ and that’s all that really matters, everything else flows out of that.
Confessions of a Skeptical Evangelical 
“The church isn’t perfect because humans aren’t perfect” I love that line in the film version of Angels and Demons (I don’t remember it from the book but it may be in there somewhere…).
A well oiled, slick machine of a service is probably the least perfect of them all, to me it seems to fail to show humanity. One of my favourite things about being involved with the people I have been involved in over the years is that it hasn’t been perfect, it hasn’t been right. The offering has often not been done, the kids not told to leave for Sunday school when they should have been and I remember a time when I had prepared a prayer activity and the worship leader that evening didn’t call me up to do it but offered a quick closing prayer instead. We’ve pretty much never started on time, the computer and/or projector will go wrong, this evening I managed to have the wrong words up in easy worship about 50% of the time.
A tight vessel may contain light, but only through its cracks can the light escape and shine into the world.
Thankyou for the encouragement James! It’s greatly appreciated (and it’s good to hear I’m not the only one who messes the words up!).
That last quote reminds me of a line from a song, ‘Through crumbling stone light begins to bleed…’