Well, it finally happened.

What?  You may be asking…

Yesterday, during worship, we had massive, public, and spectacular technical (some self-caused) failure.  I should have known it from the start, when we didn’t get a chance to rehearse this week (dang New Year’s Eve) and a band member walked in and announced that he had absolutely no idea what songs we were doing as he hadn’t been on e-mail in 2 weeks.  Couple that with the fact that during my “welcome” I apparently had the verbal dexterity of a 2 1/2 yr old on cold medicine…all should have been indicators that I needed more divine help.

I had been “diligent”  spiritually – I prayed the service up in days leading up to it – I prepared my heart humbly that morning in prayer and in the Word.  Logistically – I knew we had communion to celebrate, and I figured we’d only have our ‘pre-service’ rehearsal time, so I didn’t have a  complex set.  Rehearsal/sound check actually went well…

“Get to the spectacular public technical failure!!”  OK, I will.

The drummer clicked off “Your Grace is Enough” and I felt people were ready to enthusiastically jump in and worship.  It was at that moment where I heard no sound coming out of my bass at all.  I’m thinking “Cord?” nope.  “Battery?”  Nope, I switched to passive pickup mode. Still nothing.  All this while leading of course and giving the “Nothing’s going wrong, everything is fine, keep worshiping” face.  I then glanced back at my amp and saw the indicator light on for “MUTE”.  My amp seemed 600 miles away, I could never get there and back without the whole band stopping the song in confusion, so I pressed on. Silent. Lonely. Bass-less.  Getting the ‘Kip Winger Award for Pretending to Play Bass While Really Not Playing the Bass’.

Then Laura’s wireless mic died, but in it’s death throes…took out my mic.  (Cue the ‘spectacular’…) For whatever reason, my mic then cut in and out, but when it came back “in” whatever I was singing was amplified to Yankeee Stadium Announcer Level. So it was like “Your gr— is  ENOUGH, Yo– g–ce IS —gh”

We managed to get thru the song to the end/instrumental outro where I took the opportunity to run the 600 miles back to my amp to de-mute myself.  Nearly tripping (Thank you LORD for not letting me trip….) upon getting to my amp the band promptly and awkwardly stopped playing the pre-rehearsed outro and looked at me in confusion. The song ended with a wimper.

What now?

How do I transition out of THAT?

Most of all – is there anyone in the room that is still focused on worshiping God at this moment?  Did I just lead everyone to NOT worship?

I’ve had my share of train wrecks, and stupid moments on stage in the “secular” biz playing tons of weddings and rock clubs – but this one hurt more.  I felt like I had really interrupted worship.   I kinda felt like I let everyone, even God down.

So, I acknowledged what all 200+ people in the room already understood clearly — that “Your Grace is Enough” had been a technical disaster. I breathed a deep breath and lead in prayer. Prayed for God to take back his service, prayed for help, prayed that I would really really really believe that right now- his grace is enough.

Believe it or not, there were still people that came up to me and Facebooked me and said “Thank you” for worship.  That’s some grace right there.  Being able to look past the bald guy in a suit (remember I said it was Communion Sunday) who was trying to make everyone think his bass was on, and that no one heard the mic explosions, and that yes…he really did almost trip and fall running 600 miles back to his amp to fix his own stupidity for muting his amp in the first place.

I also saw every sound guy in the room literally run to the sound board to help poor Marc who was back there looking at the soundboard with arms in the air with the “I have no idea what is doing that or how to make it stop” look.  That’s grace.

I also realized that God doesn’t need me to work.  And that despite all my failures and weaknesses and wounded pride – he accomplishes his work by his Spirit in the hearts of those that seek him.  And, he even allows me to continue doing what I love and growing in the knowledge and sanctification of him. That’s grace.  And yes…that grace is “enough” because our God is more than anything we can comprehend.

The ultimate expression of grace?

⁴But^[b] God, being^(G) rich in mercy,^(H) because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even^(I) when we were dead in our trespasses,^(J) made us alive together with Christ—^(K) by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and^(L) seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable^(M) riches of his grace in^(N) kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For^(O) by grace you have been saved^(P) through faith.

Thank you God for showing me ultimate grace thru your Son, Jesus.

Focusing on that makes spectacular public technical failures a lot easier.