Learning by practice

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 10 August 2003 16:09:50

I was asked to lead today's church service, which I was OK about a few days ago but this morning I was having serious doubts regarding my ability.

When you get an email saying "have you got church keys" at 10.30pm on the Saturday night you realise what you could have overlooked. Luckily my landlady had left the church hall keys behind so I able to gain entry to set things up. I suppose we could have had the service al fresco, but it would have been awkward.

Then it's trying to sort out who is doing what because, despite pleas about letting you know if there are rota changes, different people are doing the jobs including sound and expecting me to teach them how to set up before the service starts. Like how?

Then of course you get those who don't turn up to do their rota until after the service has started - and then look put out because you've allocated someone else who was early to do it instead.

To cap it all it was very hot and sticky and not the sort of weather where you want to be stuck inside an airless building (we've had to seal the windows because of the local pigeon population which delight in getting into the church and crapping everywhere). Thank goodness someone came with the key to the heating cupboard and changed the settings so it blew cool air into th church. He's a saint!

To cut a long story short, I started out crabby, lost my rag a couple of times and began to doubt whether it was right for me to be leading. I was also feeling tired (sleepless nights due to the heat) and depressed (no job, home or money).

But I persevered. It was rather like trying to knock down a brick wall. I apologised to those I'd shouted and moaned at; tried to remember who was now doing what and when (including helping set up the sound) and when I felt that things were "flat" I just had to "let go and let God".

That's a lesson well learnt.