Journal

The broken string

Posted on January 31st, 2005, in the evening

Last weekend (24th) I led worship for the first time in Durham, at the Kings evening service. As I prepared for the service I was struggling to keep the desire to make a good impression secondary to the actual business.

To cut a long story short, my string broke in the middle of the first song. I couldn't struggle on (it was my A string - guitarists understand), so with a slightly fumbled exhortation to carry on without me for a minute I lept over to my case to change the string. "Well, at least that takes care of the good impression," I thought, with the kind of bittersweet relief you get when the greater good is served at the expense of your ego.

Behind me someone started singing 'How deep the Father's love for us'. Everyone picked it up, a cappella with harmonies. There was a tangible sense of people owning the time of worship and reaching out to God.

I got back to the mic to find they were perfectly in E, the key I needed for the next song, and I knew it was on. We had such a rich time of worship. People were coming up to the mic, reading scriptures, offering words all through the meeting, all with the same heart.

Later, at the end of the meeting I played my final chords but people just kept worshipping. More people came and shared things, people led responses to the talk, people were praying for one another, all kinds, all good, another half hour.

The broken string got me beyond my agenda and put the meeting in everybody's hands, and with everybody owning the meeting together God had a fairly free hand to get involved. Worth remembering.