I was walking through the back of our Church building after our first program Sunday this past week, and I overheard a lady speaking to another woman about the worship. Honestly, it was not mean-spirited gossip or someone causing division. It was a woman expressing her opinion, and she said, “Worship was a little long today, and I wish we had done each song about half as long.”

There was a moment where I wanted to stop them and say, “If you knew what happened today, you would be thankful we even had worship.” I kept quiet, but I thought it might be important to share a story with you.

The sermon idea had been set for a year, and about a month ago, I started working on the worship to accompany it. I created a list of possible songs that made a connection to the sermon topic for the day. Two weeks ago, one of our worship leaders picked out the final list of songs they wanted to play. I typed up the worship plan for Sunday, and it was shared with everyone on the worship team.

In the week preceding Sunday, members of the worship team listen to the songs online. Then they practice the songs with their instruments to be prepared. We have wonderful worship leaders at our Church who take their job seriously and are ready to lead every week.

Late Saturday afternoon, I received a text stating that our worship leader was sick and possibly had Covid-19. She was set to get tested on Sunday morning and would not be there for worship. She and her family would not be leading or participating in Church in any way.

I immediately contacted another worship leader and asked for help. She took the songs that were planned and headed to the Church building to practice them and try to prepare. She contacted other people from the team and tried to throw together additional singers and musicians. So on Saturday evening, everything changed from the leader, the main instruments, and the singers, all while keeping the same songs because some of the team knew them well and everything was already in our presentation software.

Finally, these incredible people showed up early on Sunday morning. They prayed and practiced for about an hour. Limited changes were made because of the timing. Then these people all stood up and led worship and even sang a special chorus that was the sermon text put to music.

All things considered, it was a good morning. Was worship polished and perfect? Nope. Did we offer praise to God? Yep. In fact, if I had not told you this story, most of you would have never known anything happened. People stepped up, everyone helped, and no one complained.

I have no hard feelings about what I heard this woman say in the lobby of our Church building. The leaders knew it wasn’t perfect, but they lead in the best way possible. At moments like these, I come to appreciate the Church and all the people who love the Lord and serve there each week. Even when it is not flawless, God is working both in and through his people, maybe, especially when it is not perfect.