the muted piano

Today I was humbled. In all the experience I’ve had leading and playing with worship teams I have never felt so humiliated. Given, the situation was much more serious in my mind than it was in reality, but that didn’t change the way I felt inside.

The service started out completely ordinary. Nate and my stress levels were higher than normal simply because Aaron was out of town and we were running things. Nate led us all through the rehearsal, meeting, and prayer time and we started the service just as planned. I was playing the keyboard as opposed to the regular piano so that I could use the B3 (organ) setting for our third song. It was only my third time ever playing on this particular instrument and I was still a bit unfamiliar with how to use it. When we finished the third song, I faded the B3 out by turning down the volume. Nate and I stepped back with the rest of the band while one of the pastors came up to give the announcements and pray for the offering. When we stepped back forward to play the offertory, the song’s piano/acoustic intro was surprisingly just acoustic. I looked at Nate and the look of question on his face confirmed to me that he was just as surprised as I was. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but kept playing thinking something had gone wrong with my in-ear monitor and that perhaps the piano was still audible in the house. Luckily, the band was able to carry the song alright without the piano.

After we sat down for the sermon time, I went back to the sound booth and asked the sound guy what had happened. He said that he had full signal on the instrument and that there shouldn’t be any problem, but he’d check. I thought perhaps he had accidentally muted the keyboard in our in-ear mix since none of the other band members could hear it either. When we got up to sing the final song, I was praying that the problem would be fixed because this song had a solo piano intro and Nate was the lead vocal and would need to hear it. But yet again, there was no piano in my ears. The congregation was standing and the click track was ticking away in my ears and I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea if they sound was coming through the house or not and Nate was looking like me wondering where to come in with the vocal. After at least 12 bars of silence I just started singing. Nate jumped in with the guitar and the other band members followed him. We played through the rest of the song and then sat down again, all still very confused as to why there was no piano sound.

After the service was over, the electric guitar player and the sound guy took a look at the keyboard to figure out what had happened. Within a few seconds the electric guitar player looked at me and said, “Emma, you had the volume turned all the way down! That’s why we couldn’t hear it!” I couldn’t believe it. I was literally in shock. I realized that when I faded out the B3, I never brought the volume back up to continue playing. What a stupid mistake! What a stupid mistake that had so many consequences. I was responsible for ruining the service. Hadn’t I just been the one sharing with the team during our prayer time about the importance of giving God a blameless offering? About giving our best? I was the “worship major” who is supposed to know what she’s doing. 20 seconds of dead air with the congregation standing and wondering what the heck we were doing was simply not acceptable. What would the congregation think? They would probably wonder why Aaron left the service in the charge of two kids who don’t know anything and don’t take church seriously.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to beg for forgiveness from the whole team. They all just laughed and told me it was okay, but I would not believe it. The only positive thing I could think of was that I had learned a valuable lesson – make sure you know how to use your instrument!

When I finally made it to Taco Bell to meet my family for lunch, I was still very shaken up. My mom asked how the service went since she’d been in the nursery and I told her about my “error” and said I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She responded by saying “You don’t have to make it all about you, gosh.” And that’s when it hit me: it really wasn’t about me. None of it was. So I messed up. Everyone messes up here and there. We’re human. The congregation really didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t know how the song was supposed to sound so to them there wasn’t really that much difference in their eyes.

As I thought about it more, I realized that while I’d been trying to tell people that worship wasn’t about them, worship had become about me. In the depths of my heart, it was all about giving my best – looking my best, sounding my best, acting my best. All the while, I’d lost focus of why I give my best at all. I’d allowed my stress to take over and set a standard of perfection for myself. When it all fell apart I fell with it. It was an interesting lesson to say the least.