Does this sound familiar to you?…
You are standing on the stage performing a song. Right in the middle of the song your mind goes blank and you completely forget the words. You do not have the presence of mind to make up some lyrics so you just stand and stare at the congregation for what seems like an eternity until your brain kicks back in and the words come back to you.
Or in the midst of your song you go to belt out that beautiful high note and instead, an awful cracking, duck quacking noise comes out of your mouth.
Let me just say from experience – an immediate feeling of “let me just die” comes over you!
I have been involved in the music ministry long enough to make almost every mistake possible. Now the question is this: How do you move past an error during a performance? This is a question that every singer has to answer at some point.
I have seen varying reactions when mistakes are made during a song. Some roll with it and laugh it off while others allow the mistake to paralyze them to the point of affecting their music ministry.
We all agree that we want to do our best when we perform but there is a point of perfection that we will never reach here on this earth. Psalm 18:30 says “This God- His way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true.”(ESV) Yes, God is perfect. His ways and His Word are perfect.
But we are not perfect and we will not be perfect until we are with Jesus. We ALL make mistakes! And no matter where you are in your music ministry, there will be more mistakes to come. 2 Corinthians 3 says, “Our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers.”(ESV)
Over the years the Lord has taught me this: Strive to do your very best as unto the Lord and leave the results in His Hands. If you have made a royal error during a performance then make improvement your goal. Don’t let pride enter your heart and keep you from moving past that error. And don’t question the effectiveness of the ministry God has given you. Your competence comes from Him!
So laugh off that mistake, get your next song ready, move past that error and continue to sing for Jesus!