you interrupted my worship song!

This past Sunday morning, my wife and I were lying in our bed, snuggled up under the warm covers, looking forward to a lazy Sunday morning. It was my weekend off from leading worship at church and we had gone to the Saturday night service the previous night. So when the phone rang on my nightstand at 7am, and I saw that it was Greg the Tech Director for the weekend. My first reaction was to hit "ignore" and go back to my warm wonderbedland. But I realized that I probably should answer it. So I did.

"Hi Greg"

"Jeff. I hate to tell you this, but Logan (the worship leader for the weekend) was up all night puking and is here rehearsing with the band right now. He's not quite sure he'll be able to do it this morning. You are plan B".

"...uh...ok..."

"I'll call you if we need you for sure"

"...alright..."

Click.

The dreams of lounging around in my jammies all morning began to disintegrate. Hear me right, I was totally ok with filling in for Logan. But I had to do a quick attitude and expectation adjustment. Not 2 minutes went by...

"Hey Greg"

"Yeah, he's in the bathroom puking. Can you come in?"

"You bet. See you soon."

30 minutes later I was walking into the church. Logan led the first set at the 8am service and then passed the baton to me for the rest of the 2.5 services. While the preacher was teaching the first service, I was in the green room getting briefed on the order of songs, switched out a song, added a new one, explained how we were going to do it, and took a deep breath.

After the sermon was over, the worship band and I took our places on stage and began the song "Mighty to Save". Now, you must know that the people who come to the 8:00 service are not there with the intention to get riled up. They love to worship, but not physically. Not with their bodies. Mostly with their buns seated in the pew.

As we began the first song, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that three ladies in their 30's were walking up to the front of the sanctuary. I assumed they were just going to pray. But as we hit the chorus "Savior...He can move the mountains...My God is mighty to save...He is mighty to save..." we all heard the sound of a hammer pounding a nail into our cross on stage. This cross is there on stage all year long, and the ribbons that are held by nails bear witness to each individual life that has chosen to surrender their lives to King Jesus.

Here we were in the middle of singing a song about the saving power of Jesus, and two ribbons were pounded into the cross. What happened next made my knees weak with worship. The congregation of 700 people erupted with applause and rose to their feet. The voices got louder. The words "...Forever...Author of salvation...He rose and conquered the grave..." took on a whole new meaning.

You don't forget stuff like this. You can't script stuff like this.

Two lives changed by the power of Christ. 700 lives and one worship leader changed by the power of lives changed by Christ.