When Things Go Wrong in Worship

Today was one of those days...where everything seemed to go wrong. The first service (8:45 traditional) was fine, nothing major, but the 11:00 service rolled around and I had practiced with the band, I was ready to preach, and for things to go as normal. That was until 10:55 when our lead acoustic guitar player came up to me and said, "I can't play today. I am getting a migraine and I can't see. I need to go sit down." And of course I told him to go take care of himself, but at the same time I panicked. Luckily, our electric guitar player was able to step up, but since he hadn't practiced for leading, he was a little shaky. So the band struggled a lot today, but we managed. I was so thrown off by this whole thing that I sang the wrong words at one point, and then we couldn't get the introduction on another song, so I suggested that we all sing it without the music together. Luckily our instruments that we had caught on and we finished the song with music. It came together somehow. And then I didn't have any children for the children's time, so I did my message anyway with some members of the band, but I felt like an idiot. And THEN our media guy (who was substituting for the regular guy) messed up the scripture words on the screen, but who can really blame him since he was filling in. And then because I was so distracted by everything that was going on, I felt like my sermon was just a flop. Not to mention, we hardly had anyone at the service today...which might have really been a blessing since everything fell apart at the last minute. I know it probably wasn't as bad as I'm making it seem, but I was really disappointed in the whole thing. I think part of it is my fault, too, since I feel like I never really recovered from the guitarist having to step out at the last minute and it really threw me off. But I was able to improvise on some things and we made it happen. But I still asked myself, What happens when things go wrong in worship? How do we recover? Do we need to remind ourselves again and again not to take ourselves so seriously? What happens when the mics don't work, the media won't cooperate, and crucial people get sick at the last minute? What happens when we cannot lead worship effectively as pastors because of certain situations? We just keep leading anyway. We just keep worshiping God anyway. I think that the worst part about it though was that I felt like no one really was able to worship today. I don't know if that had to do with me or there were too many distractions or what, but the whole service just felt empty. Maybe someone got something out of it. Who knows. Either way, I feel frustrated, mad at myself, and just upset about today's service. There is nothing really that could have been done about it. I just think that sometimes we just have these days...even in church.