This is an account of Sunday 14th October 2018, the very first day that I was on the church worship team for "vocals and guitar".
To say that I was nervous for my first experience in the church worship team would be an understatement. The day before, I decided to try and practise the songs, but I found myself in a state of tears, and having a hard time because I was still recovering from a cold.
I turned up at church at 8:30 in the morning for team rehearsal and I just really didn't want to have to be there because of my nerves and because of how tired I was. Everyone else was practising on their instruments when I arrived, but I just couldn't bring myself to prepare on my own, where everyone else could hear me. When it was time for our sound check and we had to run through each of the songs, I was at the peak of my nerves. However, we took our time to learn how to play each song as a team, and our new worship pastor Matt made sure that we all knew what we were doing. At this point, I was sorted for my guitar playing; I'd had to plug my guitar into the sound system, which did mean that everyone would be able to hear me, but Matt was also playing the guitar, and I knew that I would be fine if I just followed his lead.
Then came the scarier part - having to do the vocals too. I was told that I would have a microphone, so I panicked and immediately told them that I had extreme microphone phobia, something that I have had my whole life, which meant that I would be keeping a steady distance between me and the microphone. However, during our song preparation, I decided to edge closer, knowing that when the church would be packed full of other people singing, the pressure would be reduced as they would hardly hear me.
I was also given some words of encouragement by my friend Andrew, who told me that my singing was nice from what he could hear in the in-ear device, so I shouldn't have anything to worry about. I was also reminded by him that because of all of the instruments in the band, it would be really hard for me to solely hear myself sing, so I should not be put off my this.
It came to the first service of the day, and my nerves had completely gone! I realised during our sound check earlier that this experience had been the highlight of my entire week, and maybe the highlight of University this year! It just felt right for me to be doing this and I really started to gain confidence throughout the service! At one point, I really felt that I had found my calling, and that this is what God wants me to do!
The church sermon, by Ed Down, was about generous giving to God, and how we should have to give up some things to follow Jesus. I was deeply moved by this sermon, and I knew that God was telling me to give up my comfort zone, my shyness and my reservedness, and to really praise my God!
After the service, I was encouraged greatly and given complements by people at church, and it really fuelled me on and got me excited for the second service of the day.
As a worship team, we all had lunch at Matt's house. It was an afternoon of team bonding, before we headed back to church for our 4pm service to get back into it. Although the afternoon service is always the more popular service of the two, I felt that I was much more confident for this one. So during our rehearsal, I really went for it, standing as close to the microphone as I could, in the knowledge that I wanted to give God my all and not care about the thoughts of myself or anyone else.
We decided to make some additions to "I Give You My Heart" by Reuben Morgan from what we had done in the morning, so we had a run through for the first time, and I sang my heart out to the point where as our student worker Tog was walking past, she seemed to do a double-take, probably to verify that it actually was me singing, and she wasn't just hallucinating. Of course she seemed surprised, but I just carried on, slightly amused by her reaction.
Ed's message from this morning had really stuck with me, and I decided that this afternoon, I would give up all of my reservedness and stand as close to the microphone as I could, knowing that I just wanted to give God my best efforts!
There were a few times where I was completely absorbed in the worship and I closed my eyes to let God take over. Other times, I looked out onto the rest of the church, to discover them all in a really deep state of worshipping God. I saw that there was no one watching me, and that there genuinely was no pressure on me, just as Matt had promised from the start!
After the service, we had a team chat and prayer, where Matt really focused on the fact that our mistakes don't matter to God. I was told by the team that I performed so much better during the second service because I was strongly singing into the microphone. I then decided to share with Matt about how Ed's sermon had deeply moved me to want to give up my comfort zone to focus on God and all that he had planned for me. He seemed really pleased and encouraged me to keep going with the worship.
Then finally, as I was leaving church, I thanked Matt for all that he had done for me, and told him that much to my surprise, I had thoroughly enjoyed my time on the worship team this week, and I couldn't wait for next time. He told me that I had only scratched the surface with the musical gifts that God had given to me, which really put everything into perspective, of how God is always behind each and every one of my successes. His epic final words of encouragement were "Lois, this is only the beginning. The best is yet to come. Next you'll be International Worship Leader, Lois Pritchard". It really made me laugh, even if he was being serious, but I was left with a smile on my face that nothing could take away. I ended the day completely overjoyed with all that God has blessed me with. I will truly remember this day for a long time!
Myself and my amazing worship team: Matt Courtney, Becky Brydon, Andrew Bailey and Alex Benjamin
Lois
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