We all may not have climbed Mount Everest.
We all may not have run a triathlon.
We all might not have tasted octopus, done jury duty, or bun-jee jumped over the Grand Canyon.
But there is a story we can all tell. And that’s the story of an embarrassing moment.
Anyone who does anything on a stage will have embarrassing moments to share. Let’s be honest – sometimes words come out the wrong way.
In today’s post, I’m going to share a couple real-life embarrassing moments I’ve had as a worship leader (you’re also going to swallow your pride and share your embarrassing moment(s) in the comments, right?)
Then, I’m going to explain why we need them.
My “Crap” Story
My first story is about a word that came out the wrong way. Oh, the difference once (freaking) letter can make!
It was our Saturday night service. The Holy Spirit was moving. We were in a moment that all worship leaders crave. People were engaged, God was there.
As the leader, I wanted to speak into the situation to give some direction. I felt we needed to clap our hands and shout unto God with a voice of triumph.
So I said, “Can we all just lift up a clap of praise?” Only I didn’t say clap. With all the bold faith I could muster, I said “Can we all just lift up a crap of plaise?” Yep, I said “crap” in church.
I’ve permanently banned the word “clap” from my worship vocabulary and think you should do the same.
Capo Problems
Another time, we were the guest worship team for an outreach service at another church.
We were doing the song “Glory to God Forever” in the key of B. For you guitar players, you know what’s up. Capo 4 is what’s up.
Only I started the song by myself with capo 5. When the band kicked in, it sounded like Halloween. Demons were laughing and angels were fleeing.
I turned around, furious at my band, only to hear my guitar player yelling, “He’s playing in C!” Wow.
2 Reasons Why We Need Embarrassing Moments
Moments like these can often paralyze a worship leader. We put a lot of stock into our talent – our ability to perform.
We like to impress others. We want people to speak highly of us. But there’s two points I want to make regarding embarrassing moments.
We need embarrassing moments because:
#1: They Keep us Rooted in Reality
Sure, we don’t want to screw up on purpose. But moments like these are a constant reminder that we shouldn’t lead worship to be impressed with ourselves or to impress others.
We need to be fully impressed with God. That is the goal.
Your embarrassing moment doesn’t ruin anything, because it’s not about you.
#2: It’s a Sign We are Taking Risks
If you don’t have many embarrassing moments to share, it may be because you’re playing it too safe. You’re hanging out in the shadows where no one can see you.
You’re insulating yourself from fear and rejection. To step out on stage means risking failure. You’re being vulnerable. You’re making art.
What’s the alternative but to hide, share nothing, and avoid making an impact? I’ll pick getting embarrassed any day.
A Simple Giveaway (for sharing your story)
The giveaway is now over. Here are our winners!
- Tim Phillips
- Joey Williams
- Amy TerMarsch
- Corey Chan
- Mike Franklin
Who wants to go first? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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Great post! Love the part about sounding like “Halloween.” Hilarious.
Yes indeed. But Sean – you didn’t share an embarrassing story of your own here 😉
I guess this is more of a technical issue that threw our worship team out of whack but felt really embarrasing.
Our regular keyboard was in the shop for maintenance so i was using a backup casio keyboard you can find at radio shack. As we’re singing our first praise song this thing decides to play random drum patterns and i have no idea how to stop it. What happened was it went into sync mode where the drum beats start when you hit a key. So as I’m trying to get it resolved i just motion for the team to keep playing and singers to keep singing (I finally just had to reset the keyboard by disconnecting). After the song was done i just wanted to run off the stage and learned a life lesson…always have a plan B in place! And a at times a plan C!
Hahahaha – this is so great! But I’m not sure it felt that great in the moment 🙂
Great post & reminder! I tend to be a perfectionist & hate when I’ve messed up but love what you said about walking on stage is risking failure & you rather take the risk & make an impact then not try! Great point! Yes we are human & it’s not about us.
I was leading one time and the band was making the transition from the faster songs to a slow song that I had lead a million times. My piano player started it out to set the mood to transition into Revelation Song, only as I stood there with my mic (i dont play an instrument) listening I couldn’t fi d my note in the song to start it…I actually couldn’t even recognize the song at all! My heart started racing as I kept thinking why can’t I recognize a song I’ve done for years? So you guessed it, I just thought ok I will start singing & the band will catch up or we will just pull it off somehow. I started singing, it sounded horrible and I was way off & as I turned around to see what was going on everybody’s face was horrified bc nobody could understand what was going on. Our bassist said out loud to our piano player, hey you’ve started playing a completely different song! You’re on the wrong song and wrong page…we all stopped, there was a nervous laugh, and that awkward silence that seemed like forever (but really only lasted for a second) as everyone was staring at us & then we went on with Revelation Song and all was well (other than a little bit of embarrassment)! 🙂
Oh my! That had to have been so scary! Haha.
Wow, this blog really hit home because I just had one of those embarrassing moments yesterday! And, to top it off, I was feeling really bummed and disappointed in myself about it. I had to remind myself over and over again, “It’s not about me”. Here’s the story: we were using a pad loop and I had made a last minute key change to the 2nd song of the set but failed to let my sound guy know; he was running the pad loop. I started the song out in the key of the pad loop but was playing it in another key and it didn’t sound pretty. I tried to quietly mouth the right key to him but he couldn’t read my lips and just yelled out across the gymnasium, “what key?” Needless to say, it killed the moment! So I yelled back the key and we started the song over. Humbling….that’s all I can say.
I love the fact that he shouted – haha. Wow, I’m sure this wasn’t very funny in the moment. But now…you have a GREAT story to tell 🙂
On my first official Sunday as Worship Pastor, right after the set, I walked back about 10 feet to put my guitar on its stand. I didn’t realize I was still tethered to my Aviom and I knocked it over. All the buttons flew off and scattered everywhere and everyone just kind of stared at me. It was a very humbling experience.
Hahahahahahaha! I’m not laughing AT you…I’m laughing WITH you 🙂 This is so good.
Oh where to begin. I have played an entire set with my guitar turned off. I was rocking and a rolling rockin and a reelin barbra ann, but nobody could hear the guitar ( I wasn’t really playing a Beach Boys song though, that was for comedic effect). I have also sang an entire verse out of order. I can’t remember the song but I was singing verse 3 and verse 2 was where I was supposed to be. I got the deer in the headlights look from most of the congregation. There are plenty others but that’s all I can come up with right now.
I had two yesterday I didn’t realize I said until later. In a prayer, I meant, after rattling off several of Gods blessings to us, to say “we’re so grateful” but instead said “we’re so gracious”.
Then, while introducing an upbeat bluegrass style song, I meant to be funny and say that you may find yourself tapping your toes or your leg may want to bend at the knee (as I demonstrated a foot stomp) but it came out as “you may find your foot wants to bend at the knee.”
Bending feet at the knee is very painful, I hear 😉
Being a true Southerner, I often make use of the phrase “let ‘er rip.” Unfortunately, on my first Sunday as Worship Pastor at my home church, I got caught up in the emotion and excitement of the moment only to encourage their singing by exclaiming “Come on…let ‘er rip for Jesus.” Can’t get those words back once they’re out there. My wife was embarrassed enough for the both of us. I haven’t used that phrase much since that day.
Please tell me you have a recording of this? 😉
Were you in my church yesterday, hiding behind a tree, watching our train wreck? I started our transition song and our drummer didn’t quite catch our tempo which was around 100 BPM. He took off at about 145 BPM. PLUS a very dear congregant in the front row who makes a “joyful noise” starting singing, LOUDLY and completely out of tune, when no one else was singing. I gave the “CEASE AND DESIST” signal to our rhythm section. The remainder of the musicians, choir and singers stuck with me, thankfully. It felt like I should have broken into the song by the Shirelles, “Mama said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this Mama said, Mama said”!
Haha! Oh, wow, that’s happened to me on a couple occasions. SO embarrassing. I once had a drummer click a fast song in at the slowest tempo possible. Those were the longest four clicks in the history of clicking sticks!
Man, I’ve had the capo thing happen more times than I care to admit. It’s my own fault, really, for failing to heed a piece of advice you give often on this blog, David: to embrace the silence and spaces between songs. Slowing things down a bit, and allowing those moments to happen (while still trying to be cognizant of “dead air” and flow-killing awkwardness), has helped here greatly.
Of course, that doesn’t imply perfection. Taking risks forfeits perfection. Just yesterday, I made a last-minute decision to take off on a fairly high-pitched (but still within my vocal range) impromptu descant to keep a song’s energy level up through a brief interlude. ‘cept I didn’t take off. The ol’ vocal rocket sputtered and exploded on the platform, and nothing but an off-key squeak came out. I comforted myself with the idea that maybe no one noticed … but the playback of the service recording pretty much dashed those hopes.
On the plus side of all such embarassments, I’ve been told on a number of occasions how much folks appreciate that my worship team is able to laugh off our mistakes and admit that we’re human. I had one family even tell me that this sort of authenticity and absence of ego were the reason they joined our church. (I jokingly replied that if the rest of our town was using that same search criteria, my goof-ups alone could pack our sanctuary many times over!) So, yeah, oddly enough, goof-ups and the graceful handling thereof can become ways that God allows us to extend our reach to the worshippers, which flies in the face of our natural assumption that imperfection is unacceptable.
Once I was leading worship for youth. Everything was going great and we ended strong on Like a Lion. I jumped on stage when we finished the last chord. It was pretty funny because we were doing a lock in, but I kept catching the youth snicker every once and a while after I did it. I also noticed some akward looks and people staring at the floor the whole time. After our second song I invited the youth to pray to God and close their eyes for a second. I looked back at hte drummer who is smiling and he points out down to my pants. When I looked down I saw a huge split d
Nooooo!! Now THAT is a lesson in humility 🙂 So great – thanks for sharing!
I taught our team a new song and we were all excited about singing it on sunday. Sunday morning came I introduced the song and prepared the congregation. The intro was given and I led the song, only I forgot the tune as did the band….. to save the embrassment I sang on with the musicans and singers and congregation singing a new song!!!!!! Vety humbling
I’ve started a 3/4 song in 4/4…not cool.
I’ve also gotten lost in the lyrics at one point during a song where we were singing about His glory, but I started to say holy. Start with holy and slide to glory and you get hory. Yeah, I called my God whorey. There were not enough fake plants in all of Chistendom to hide behind that day.
Oh my gosh…hilarious! I’m thinking we should compile a small ebook of these stories 🙂 What do you say, everyone?
Ever wonder why I wear a “more cowbell” t-shirt to gigs? At a church many, many years ago I was mixing from the balcony. That meant that I had to mix with headphones since I couldn’t actually hear the band. We had a song track (video) that we used to put up the words. To make sure the band stayed in time, the right hand track was a click track done with cowbell. I was supposed to make sure the right hand track was NOT in the house, just in the IEMs. Of course, I forgot to pull down the click track. In headphones all sounds are compressed, so to me it just sounded like a percussion player keeping time. In the house it was a 95 dB clang! Finally our media guy came flying out of his office and pulled down the right hand track. Took many years to live it down. Yes it was dumb, but it was also the reason that I’ll never assume that I know all there is to know about engineering and why I’m always willing to help others learn. Humility can be a very good thing. Another great post David and a great jumping off point for the grace discussion.
Once, I actually declared “Let everything that has “breasts” praise the Lord!”. My wife had a mild coronary and my mom still hasn’t recovered. The Pastor turned his back to the congregation and horse-laughed me. That was about 10 years ago. A church member brought it up recently….
Hahahahaha – I’m dying right now 🙂 This is amazing.
A buddy and I are worship directors at our church and we recently started two different songs at the same time…him on electric and playing the overdriven intro to Brenton Brown’s ‘God my Rock’, and me playing the intro to ‘King of Heaven’ by Paul Baloche on my acoustic. Normally I would have just stopped the whole thing…but everyone was already rolling in the song and there was no turning back. ‘King of Heaven’ was a new song we were teaching…I’m laughing thinking back on it now. Thankfully we were in the same key!!! Lesson learned…walk in humility…stop the song.
During the offering prayer: “Bless the gift and those that give.” (Never-mind the people who didn’t or couldn’t give that week.
I also told a group of prisoners during a short-term mission trip, “It’s good to see you!”
I have SEVERAL more…(should I even be allowed to hold a microphone??)
One night I was leading worship and toward the middle of the last song I realized I was getting VERY VERY hot!! Leading worship ain’t no joke!! I started feeling like I was going to throw up! I prayed oh God no!!! Just let me finish the song!! Somehow by his miraculous power I finished the song.. Turned around to sit down in the choir area and started dry heaving!!! Oh my God no!! Please God!!! I stood up only to make it 2 feet to start heaving again!! I sat back down in terror trying to STOP myself from throwing up. I looked at another guy and said I need help!! Somehow I don’t even remember I made it to the side door of the church and literally ran to the Restroom where I proceeded to throw up violently and pee my pants all over the bathroom floor while hugging the toilet!! They got my husband who came into help me. After about 15 minutes … I opened the door to …get this… AN AUDIENCE OF ABOUT 6 people waiting on me to finish !! How embarrassing!!! At least they loved me!!!! To God be the glory!!!
#overheatedpraise!! Whoop!!
I was leading worship for youth earlier this year and had put a set together with the intention of walking the students through the gospel from creation through commission. So I was talking through some points in between songs and was trying to drive it home. I had the students repeat after me: “God is holy. We are sinners. Jesus saves. And Jesus sends.”. So I noticed some commotion towards the end of that but didn’t pay any attention. After we went off stage I came up on the lead guitarist and drummer talking about what just happened. I heard our guitarist talking about some distraction and the drummer mention “I almost got up and walked off stage”. Apparently when I said “Jesus sends”, the entire room thought I was saying “Jesus sins”! Word of advice, add another word or 2 if you say Jesus sends. Jesus sends us works much better.
Wow – this is a great warning! Haha. I once had someone ask me if we worshiped God as a “she”. I guess my pronunciation of “He” sounded more like “She”.
Years ago, I was leading Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable” and on the second verse when we’re supposed to sing “…or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow”, I led the congregation in singing “…or seen heavenly whorehouses laden with snow”. At that moment, I broke out in a sweat and felt my entire head start burning up. But what can you do? I just kept on singing. I can’t lead that song anymore without having a slight panic attack beforehand.
hahahahaha! Some of these sound like Rated R worship. Enter in at your own risk. OK, I’m done 🙂
Ok, at this point I’m laughing to hard to read any further!
Wow, all of these make me feel soooo much better about life.
One of my most painful worship memories was back in college at our student group. We were introducing “I Love Your Presence” from Bethel, which as you may know is in 3/4. But our drummer proceeded to click the song off in… 4/4. I wasn’t leading that particular day so I didn’t feel the freedom to bail, so we just awkwardly spaced out the words to make them fit.
Everyone seemed a little confused, but we almost pulled it off… until our pastor got up, called us out on the mistake from stage and made us re-do the song “the right way” after his message. Wow. Big slice of humble pie that day.
We were singing the song “How great is our God”, and having started singing the first half of the first verse, I was lining up in my head the start line of the second half, which I thought was “He crowns Himself in light”. I start to sing that and look down to our stage words monitor, and see that the line is actually “He wraps Himself in light”. So, and I’m not quite sure why, I decide to change what I’m singing halfway through singing it: “He cr … aps Himself in light”.
The front two rows fell about laughing, I carried on because I hadn’t realised what I’d done. I always close my eyes when singing that first verse now, because I know if I catch anyone’s eyes they’ll grin and I’ll lose it!
I was co-leading for another church’s college and career group with a drummer friend of mine who leads vocally from the drums. He was leading this particular song which allowed me freedom to move off of my mic and just enjoy the moment. Well, I enjoyed the moment a little too much… the stage was set up with three shorter portable stage units in the front and one taller one in the back where the drums were. As I got “lost in the moment,” I started moving back only to FALL OFF THE STAGE. Fortunately that taller one was back there because it kept me from falling too far… I kept playing, never lost beat and I don’t think anyone in the crowd knew. My drummer friend, however, had to lead from that point on without busting up laughing 🙂
In a moment of passionate, declarative prayer, I said, “One day, Jesus, every tongue will bow and every knee confess that…you….are… Lord….” This was when we had only one service, so it was all the more painfully obvious. Wow.
I don’t mind embarrassing moments. They keep us humble. I often find that’s worst days are the ones I receive the most positive feedback about the awareness of God’s presence being so strong. I know it had nothing to do with my ability, and everything to do with being obedient, trusting God to do what He wanted.
Before I took over as worship leader, my husband had the role. He is an excellent guitarist with a great understanding of music theory. He is also a natural leader and can make the worst band sound decent by just being there. That being said, worship leading is not where his heart is, thus I am now the leader and he is a huge asset to helping me with the arrangements.
My hubby has an addiction to Dt Pepsi and decided he desperately needed one, so he excused himself during the sermon to run to a nearby gas station. Communion time came and he wasn’t anywhere to be found so the band stood there awkwardly waiting for our leader to start us off. I was on bass and we had a timid rhythm player. I figured we’d just go for it. I was confident in my playing and figured I could lead, however, one of the singers panicked and started singing without us. As we jumped in she was in the wrong key. I figured they would adjust the vocals, because that is what I would do (and quickly!), but they didn’t! It was awful! I couldn’t get the guitarist’s attention to stop playing and just let them sing A cappella. Halfway through the song my husband walks onto the stage, just in time for his guitar solo, nailed it, and the rest of the song was perfect.
Since I have taken over as Worship Leader I have been developing leaders within the team and teaching about what to do in unexpected situations. We no longer NEED my husband in order to have a great set. Although, I think it is always better with him. 🙂
So, I was told the last minute to lead worship. This was literally minutes to the service. So i’m like..ummm sure?…anyways, I didn’t know the lyrics top of my head as I’m the guitar player (no excuse, but yeah)…So there I am, with my trusted music stand, with the lyrics and chords…So the song I was leading was ‘From the ends of the Earth’…Middle of the song, all is going well when all of a sudden, the wind blows and the paper falls to the ground!!Bam!!I’m mid sentence…reading the lyrics to the second verse, and I don’t know how the rest of the song goes!!!I mumble something or the other hoping the church (did I mention the church is really small, kind of like a glorified home fellowship) would just carry on singing…Some did, others looked at me like..umm, does she not know the words?…(maybe that was in my head, maybe they though..poor thing…or maybe thy were worshiping)…Anyways, the guy at the front just came over, picked up the paper and put it back on my stand. Needless to say, now I know all lyrics before Sunday, whether I’m just playing, or singing and playing…lol…
Thank you for this. I feel better already because I have been reminded it’s not about me.
I had an embarrassing moment yesterday during worship. I was to lead the last song and the leader before me was to do 2 songs. she did one song and handed the mic to me. I’m was confused as to whether she wanted me to do her song for her before doing mine. I just went ahead and did mine very well. then I looked to her to come take the mic and she didn’t want to. I engaged the audience and tried to introduce the song she was to do which is too popular a baby will sing it over and over again so easily. but I missed the beat and the instruments stopped. I tried again and the same thing happened. everyone stopped. but I kept on. I wanted to stop the session but I tried again and I picked up the song.. I’ve been so embarrassed since then, I am even dreading going for practice tomorrow. I’ve been crying and I can’t even sleep well. then I goggled what to do and I saw this post and I feel better.. thank you so much! (it’s not about me So I will move on). I live to worship Him