Tripping the Tongue Fantastic

I recently enlarged the font size of my blog entries and changed it to Times from Helvetica. Let me know how you like it. 

If you speak to groups of people often enough, you will eventually say something pretty goofy.  It will come flying out of your mouth before you can do a thing about it, and often with very comical and even embarrassing results. If you’re lucky, everyone will think your spoken faux pas is funny and you can laugh at yourself and move on.

One of the best sermon bloopers I ever heard about actually happened in my own church. Several years ago one of our pastors ministered on the topic of harvesting souls for God’s kingdom. He used the analogy of a piece of modern farm equipment, the combine, to illustrate a point.  “And the farmer rides that combine...,” he began.  Well, he meant to say "combine." The trouble is, he didn’t. He said “concubine.” 

Now, I wasn’t present in the service that morning, but I sure heard about it later. And I laughed and laughed, and it still makes me smile just thinking about it! This man is so respectful of the sensibilities of others, he would never in a million years say such a thing from the pulpit intentionally. And that just makes it all the more hilarious!

Worship leaders are not immune from tripping over their tongues, either. Some years ago, I was leading my home church in the song, “Amen! Praise and Honor.” The chorus is pretty easy to remember, but the verses get a little wordy. If you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to flub the lyric.  So we get to the line that says,

    Day and night they are standing there
    Lifting palm leaves up in their hands

 If there is one advantage of being the worship leader instead of the preacher, it’s that other people are singing along with you, which helps hide your vocal mistakes. What I sang, and over a microphone, was “lifting palm trees up in their hands.”  I’d been singing with my eyes closed, but they shot open as big as saucers when it dawned on me what I’d sung. And then I immediately got this picture in my mind of the multitudes before God’s throne straining to heft large potted plants, and, well, I just couldn’t help myself. I started snickering! I was well on my way to guffawing, when I caught myself. I must have turned red as a beet from trying to hold it together in front of the church, but I did manage to keep from totally losing it. We finished the worship service with most of the congregation none the wiser.  But I was never able to sing that song with a straight face again!

The song "Amen! Praise and Honor" hasn't been included in one of my set lists in quite some time - I still tend to sing "palm  trees."  I don’t think I'm going to hear a sermon in my home church any time soon that involves farm machinery, either.  Too bad!


Lynn

“Amen! Praise and Honor” by Gerrit Gustafson
  © 1987 Integrity's Hosanna! Music (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)