It just wasn't good.
My minister has let me shaddow him for the four weeks or so I have between placement ending and selection conference. Last week it was a short prayer. Simple enough.
This week I had a more involved prayer booked. Fine. Then this evolved into doing the introduction to the service, plus the prayers, then a bit on Christian Aid.
And that was when things started to unravel. The intro had responses, printed in the order of service. So I asked the congregation to join in, and I started, but the responses weren't coming back at me. The minister gave the lines back at me, as the congregation should have. Them Mrs Gerbil caught my eye and pointed at the order of service. No responses.
Merde. That's for the 11.00 service at Fieldside, not at the 09:30 at Lane End. That explains why the person that does the order of service looks panicked, as she told me later she was worried she had missed something. Then my mic seemed to stop working while talking about CA week, totally mucking up my train of thought.
It all goes together to look sloppy, and I feel like I'm letting down Lane End. There's often something goes wrong when I'm let loose at the front of the church, and even though things recovered at Fieldside at 11.00, I just left feeling pretty flat.
I have two more Sundays before conference.
If it makes you feel any better, at a communion service last week I announced an additional hymn - cue much panic from the organist and confused looks from the congregation.
ReplyDeleteSimilar issue - I was using the order of service from the linkage church which wasn't having communion, so the hymns were different.
Oh, and my usual trick is forgetting to switch the mic on after a hymn (we don't have anyone operating a sound desk) or having it on when it should be off.
If something like that happens, admit the mistake at the time, apologise, and move on. The world won't come to an end.
Best wishes for conference.
Don't let it get you down, it's all good experience and how you cope when things do go wrong, and they do! Often, the good thing is you never make that mistake again! You'll never get perfection but you will get better at covering up!
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