Lessons from the Baptistry

We have been in our new Worship Center for 7 months, but yesterday we had a first. One of our tech’s fell into the baptistry right before the service started. I was not exactly sure what happened and didn’t have time to find out since the count-down clock was at 30 sec when the splash occurred. When I started the service I thought someone had snuck backstage and just started splashing around.

Once the service was over, I found out that one of our VERY DEDICATED techs had a family emergency in the morning so he missed rehearsal.  But when he got there and realized the service hadn’t started yet he attempted to get back to the production room to help out.  The countdown clock was ticking so he had to get backstage quickly.  He had always used the stage-right opening (it is black in the pic).  So he assumed that the stage-left opening (it is not black) went to the same place….. WRONG.  It is the entry/exit door to the baptistry.  He was jogging up the stairs and was shocked when the last stair led him straight into a body soaking experience.

1. When you are in a hurry, it is easy to make silly mistakes. The vast majority of my mistakes when I am leading worship are caused because I did not take the time to completely prepare myself for the service. I usually end up forgetting an element, or saying something stupid.
2. Make mistakes gracefully. This guy could have been embarrassed and frustrated and gone home to be in a bad mood the rest of the day.  Instead, after the initial shock, he got some towels dried off and took his position in the production room and went to work.

The only question I have is, do we actually get to count him in our number of Baptisms this year?