If you read Saturday's post, you know that we had a "relaxing" yet jam-packed day. Sunday, which is usually the relaxing day, went just a bit differently.
My wife and I are heavily involved with music in our church. In particular we work with the contemporary worship service and in addition, my wife is the choir director for a couple of kid's groups. What all this means is that from the viewpoint of the typical outside observer, we would be considered insanely busy on the average Sunday morning. However, as in all things, once you've done them long enough it doesn't seem like it is such an effort. In our case, our usual Sunday routine feels quite comfortable, as we have been doing this for a very long time.
It is for just this reason, that we frequently add responsibilities without giving it much thought, because all else seems so routine. This is generally not a problem - when things go as planned. The problem? SUNDAY WAS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!
First, I had agreed to play the organ for our traditional services. The worship planning committee was wanting to try some new things despite the regular organist being conveniently out of town. Apparently, they misinterpreted the fact that I rarely know what I'm doing (and have become quite comfortable with this) as an ability to "roll with the punches."
Second, one of our pastors and his wife asked us to cover for them in running a video for their Bible class, since he was undergoing open-heart surgery. We thought this was a very good excuse for not being there on a Sunday and readily agreed to cover for them.
Then, sometime during the week, my wife realized that she had one of her children choirs singing that Sunday. Uh oh. Without drawing a detailed time-line of our typical Sunday, let me just say that the first service her choir was singing at, I would also be playing the organ for, and that this all exactly coincided with the Bible class time. Did I say, "Uh oh?"
Still, being unreasonably optimistic and somewhat mad, we thought we would be able to pull this off. We'd just set up the video earlier in the morning, and find someone to put the DVD in the right spot and press "play" for the Bible class.
Fast forward to Sunday morning. Since no one had let me know just exactly what was going to be so different, I went to the church very early - about 6:45AM for an 8:00 service. My wife Dianne also needed me to play piano for her choir, so I needed time to practice this piece, too. I was ahead of the game! It was at this time that I discovered that the bible class listings did not include the class my wife and I were going to do the video for. I checked our announcement screens, and sure enough, the class listing didn't show up there either. I was doubly ahead of the game! It was too bad the video wouldn't be shown but I figured there had just been a mix-up. This made things much easier.
The first service went well, and then it was time to set up for the kids singing at the second service. I started rehearsing with the kids (good thing I practiced earlier!) when another choir director came in. He was able to play for the kids while I went and set up risers for the kids to stand on. This is the point where things started going a bit squirrelly. It turns out, that some over-active do-gooder decided to "organize" the risers right away from the place where they are actually used and needed. I informed my wife that the risers were missing. She looked at me like I was crazy - which didn't really alarm me because she frequently does that - and informed me that we HAD to have risers! How can the kids sing without risers? Yikes. I didn't know how to answer this so I spent the next 15 minutes scouring the church (all 55,000 square feet) for the risers. I finally located them in a locked closet at the farthest point possible from the location they were needed! My estimated time until the service started: 5 minutes. Things were a little frantic, but do-able. I grabbed 4 sets of risers and piled them outside the closet door. I took the first pair and rushed down the hall to the worship center, nearly knocking worshipers over left and right in my enthusiasm. It seemed that the worship center was about a quarter of a mile from the closet! By the time I got to the worship center with the risers, I found that my wife had enacted a backup plan I hadn't thought of - she had a couple of people putting some steps from our stage up on the altar area instead of the missing risers. I had just wasted 15 minutes, but not to worry, I'd just start playing the opening music for the service.
It was about this time that I ran into my friend Melanie, who is heavily involved in organizing some of the Bible studies. I stopped her and told her about the class mix-up and that there wouldn't be a video. She looked at me like I was crazy - which didn't really alarm me because she's a psychologist and would be out of a job if people weren't crazy - and informed me that everything around the church: the bulletin, the video screens, and even the setup in the room were completely in the wrong and that the video Bible study was indeed going on as planned! Now don't psychologists say that if everyone around you is "wrong" it probably means that you are actually the one that's wrong? I thought it was probably not the time to share this revelation. The video class was going on! Uh Oh.
Now I was thinking to myself, "OK, I'll just run down the hall a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction, grab the projector from our office and set things up. There won't be any opening music for the second service, but people will live. If they want music, they can all just hum "Amazing Grace" or something. I'll just set up the projector real quick and then run into the service to play for the kids at the opening." It was brilliant.
So, that's exactly what I did. At least, that's what I did right up to the point where I was fast-forwarding the DVD to the proper point. It was then that Larry interrupted my brilliant plan. Larry was looking at me like I was crazy - and this alarmed me! Larry had some rather earthshaking news. Apparently, there was a church full of people and they really wanted an organist - right now. I looked at the clock on the wall, which indicated I had about two minutes to go before the service. Larry also looked at the clock. Then Larry looked at me and informed me that the clock was really quite slow and should be fixed. The children had already sung, the other choir director had played for them (I wasted all that practice!), people were trying to figure out how to ring the bells and were looking for a substitute organist for me, the original substitute organist.
The really unfortunate thing in this tale was that it was still only 9:25 in the morning and my day was just getting started!
