Perhaps one of the hardest aspects of being a church musician is making mistakes. I mean, preachers make mistakes all the time, as do lay people. And, though they may feel uneasy about the mistakes, it's kind of come to be expected that that's going to happen. You just have to hope that the mistake you make isn't about the name of the church's largest giver or calling God "She" (oh wait, is that really a mistake!?).
But, being a musician in church, at least for me, is difficult because I feel like there's an expectation that we shouldn't make mistakes--we're performers, after all! Never mind that the making of a CD or a movie is full of mistakes that no one ever gets to see. When I'm at the organ during a church service, I don't have the luxury of saying, "Oh man, that D# gets me every time!" or "Please have grace for me, I've had the worst week." No, the mistakes happen without any opportunity to laugh at it or explain it. So, whether this is really how people in the pew think or not, I can start to feel like I'm judged by what happens in that 3 minute hymn--like my entire worth as a church musician is wrapped up in that one moment. And, if I manage to make it satisfactorily through that hymn, then there will be another one in a minute that throws up the gauntlet once again.
Seems pretty backwards and futile, doesn't it? Who of us isn't going to make mistakes? Sometimes there will be blatant ones (like when I missed the 2nd ending on a hymn today), and other times it will be little things that only I and a handful of other people know about. But, as I'm discovering, surviving this road has very little to do with more or less practice. It has a lot more to do with grace. Nobody else can give me the grace I need to give myself. And thankfully, when I can't give myself grace, God reminds me that the giving and not-giving of grace is not my choice--it's God's.
So, when I don't get showered with flowers after playing a hymn particularly well, and no one seems to notice this or that I practiced so hard on my prelude, it's OK. Performing in church is not like performing on stage. Performing in church is a constant conversation of grace between God and God's people, and my mistakes are less important to God than my willingness to participate.
personally I am usually trying to present my most joyful noise to the Lord that I don't notice the big or little mistakes. And if I do, I just chalk it up to the musician finding the "noise" among the joy. And if a singer (or speaker) should make the ultimate boo-boo and accidentally get tongue-tied and curse, again God and the audience knows what was really meant. I am not into the "devil made me do it" at all.
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