A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. This was an event that I am still processing both mentally and emotionally. During one of the songs, a lady came out and started throwing down on what could best be described as “rock flute.” It was very similar to Ron Burgundy in Anchorman and his jazz flute. It was a completely bizarre instrument to throw into the mix. It felt very arbitrary, like maybe this girl happened to have a rock flute in her purse and just thought, “What the heck? This moment needs some rock flute! Let’s do this!”
The only thing I compare that incident to is the time Mr. Marshall, an 80 year old member of my dad’s church, brought his own tambourine to service. He apparently found our service lacking in tambo’ and although he probably considered that a bit of a “hippie instrument,” he decided to bring one unannounced on a random Sunday. Then, during the middle of worship he made his move, walking up to the front of the church, standing next to the worship leader and proceeded to bang away on his tambourine.
Fast song, slow song, it didn’t matter. I think at one point he was jangling up the song, “In our house Lord be glorified,” which is fairly slow and depressing. Why did he do that? Because sometimes we church members are tempted to help the staff out. To add a little to the service. To tell the pastor, “don’t worry, I got this one.”
The situation I find myself doing this the most is when a pastor asks people to raise their hands if they’ve committed their life to Christ that morning. We’re all supposed to have our heads down and eyes closed, but I always peek. And according to the end of “Velvet Elvis,” so does Rob Bell. Why do we do this?
1. As a service.
I’ll double count the numbers for you pastor, to make sure your math is right. Sometimes we do “church math,” and report our attendance with a 33% exaggeration. I can’t trust your math, so I’ll do my own.
2. It’s like God’s Google Analytics.
Every other part of my day is tracked. I can see my unique visitors, how my Twitter Klout score is doing, how many clicks I’ve had on my Facebook page. I’m trained at this point to keep tally or score, so when I count hands I feel like I’m helping out with God’s Google Analytics.
3. To judge people.
My friend Bethany told me that her pastor recently asked the congregation to pray with him about their church growing. Then he asked everyone to keep their eyes closed and raise their hand if they had prayed for the church to grow. That’s an excellent judging opportunity. Who is not raising their hand in that moment? That is an “auto hand up,” situation. That’s like not giving to a love offering. (As I’ve said, if you don’t put a dollar in a love offering, that’s the equivalent of putting in a fistful of hate.) I could totally see someone being tempted to peek during this type of prayer to essentially say, “Let’s see which of these punks isn’t praying that the church grows.”
All three of those reasons are kind of whack, but I don’t have to worry because our church doesn’t do a lot of “heads down, hands up,” moments. (Which when you say it that way kind of reminds me of the song “Da Dip.” Remember that one? “I put my hand up on your hip, when I dip, you dip, we dip.” So classy.)
But be honest today, have you ever done this?
Do you ever peek in heads down moments?
