I was so nervous about speaking that I was in the “I need to throw up” stage most of the time. I read on the internet that being that stressed out makes you a better speaker. But one can only deal with throw up in your mouth so many times.
DON’T DRINK THE WATER!
A unique way to start your message on a Sunday morning is tip your glass of water over on the pulpit as you begin to speak. I quickly went into “Tribal Church meetings” mode and told about meetings where dogs and chickens are roaming around the church. Or the time a wild herd of pigs stopped the church meeting completely as the congregation gathered their bows and arrows and ran to the hunt. Compared to this, tipping water over at the pulpit is nothing!
SHUT THE CELL PHONE OFF!
During the evening service, I left my cell phone on the pew and started my message. Three minutes into the message my phone started ringing. As my family can atest, I am Mr. ‘MAKE SURE YOUR CELL PHONE IS TURNED OFF‘ dude, and here I am at the pulpit and my phone is ringing on the front pew. I quickly go into “Cell phone going off in church” mode. Calmly (on the outside) I walked down to the pew and checked the call. It was from my nephew, Chris Fletcher. I hit the ignore button and sent Chris into the black hole. Trying desperately to recuperate, I told the story of the church service in India where the same cell phone rang three times during the service. Can you imagine? It turns out the cell phone was the Pastor’s and at each call he excused himself, answered the phone, then went back to his message. No one seemed to mind.
OPEN MIKE SUNDAY!
One of my good buddies reminded me that water or cell phone problems are not near as bad as the time I finished a message in New York. While the pastor did a very serious invitation, I decided to go to the bathroom. Humming Yankee Doodle Dandy and using the bathroom, I soon realized that my portable mike was still turned on… as I could faintly hear the pastor screaming, ‘TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF. The problem, there was no one was in the sound booth to ‘turn me off’! The pastor, in his “I never give up a chance to do an invitation” mode, continued screaming TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF! The congregation, not sure what they were to TURN OFF, TURN OFF were streaming forward to rededicate their lives, sign up for mission trips and change their membership. It was possibly the best invitation the Pastor ever had. I finally caught on to what was happening, turned off the portable mike,then calmly walked to the lobby of the church to shake everyone’s hand – all of us pretending that absolutely nothing happened out of the ordinary.
No doubt about it. Missionaries are weird. Any church that allows a missionary to speak is taking a major gamble. The very health of their church may be at stake.