Preaching Incidents

I have had a couple of great preaching incidents lately. Great, meaning "I can laugh at it later."

Sunday I began preaching, and when I reached page 3 (in the middle of a scripture quote), I realized I did not have page 4. In fact, I didn't have pages 4,5, or 6. So I had to stop and look up the scripture in the Bible and continue reading it there - then fudge the next 2 1/2 pages. Oops!

Turns out when Jonathan had "helped" me get my sermon off the printer, he left a few pages behind.

Now then, on Wednesdays during Lent, we do a joint service with the "other" church in town. Last night we were at their church, meaning it was my turn to preach. I got there in plenty of time and got my cool little on-the-ear microphone on - but I realized halfway through the service that I hadn't turned it on (I hadn't begun preaching yet). Since I was indeed wearing a robe, I wondered how I would manage to get to the microphone to turn it on. You see, I had hooked it to the back of my belt, and I was sitting on the stage in front of the congregation.

So I reached around behind myself and unhooked the microphone and reaching into my robe, I found it and turned it on. Now on to read scripture (since I had managed to not grab a bulletin, I was looking at one of the choir members' copies, and the first thing I was to do was read).

When I stepped into the pulpit to read the scripture... no Bible. I asked the other pastor (PD) for one - he had to go searching for one. He asked, "Does anyone have a Bible?" Whoops!

So I read the scripture and preached my sermon, and it all seemed to go pretty well (this year I didn't have even a single incident with the Confirmation class - they were extremely well-behaved!).

But when I was stepping out of the pulpit, I'm used to a different set-up, and I didn't see the step down behind me. If it hadn't been for PD catching me, I would have fallen. Maybe right off the stage.

Good times.