“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

— James 1:2-4

Yesterday our Resurrection Sunday service turned into the Chinese Christian Church Comedy Hour.

First– during the cantata– when the English choir people came up to join the Chinese choir– “Hey, where’s James?”, the director asked “Don’t know,” someone answered. “We’ll have to start without him!”, the director announced to the whole congregation.  Enter James, stage right, at a run—up to the drums to play.  We sang “All Glory Laud and Honor” – to the Lord, not to James 🙂

Second– Pastor S. went up to preach– and—my husband Tom’s voice resounded from the speakers—a recording of his pastoral prayer from earlier– Like a voice from heaven!  Some thought he’d suddenly gotten the gift of Chinese interpretation and was translating for Pastor S. 🙂  Tom, meanwhile, was blushing and grinning and wincing and looking embarrassed, all at once.  Then he joined the rest of us, as we all laughed together. He later said, “My prayers must have bounced off the ceiling and come back!”  P. Shen, meanwhile, stood at the pulpit, smiling, waiting for things to be fixed.  His real translator, Victor, did the same.  (We found out later they had a new guy at the sound booth, who must have pressed “play” instead of “record”.)

A few minutes later, I was sitting there thinking, “Oh, these poor leaders– must be rough to have stuff go wrong like that, but they’re handling it really well.   Good thing we can rejoice because of the Resurrection and not sweat the small stuff.”

…then it was our turn— Our English choir got up to sing after the message– and noticed– Tim wasn’t with us!  “Where’s Tim?” (we asked in low tones, not loudly).  “Up teaching the preschoolers”.  “Should we get him?”  “Just text him”  “I’ll go get him”, one guy offered.  Meanwhile, it was quiet, with all eyes on us.  As the choir director, I was responsible.

What do extroverts like me do with awkward silence– FILL it– with words! 🙂  So I stepped up to the mike and gave an impromptu introduction, enthusiastically cheering everyone on to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection, and what that means! That relieved the awkwardness, especially when I declared, “Jesus is risen!” in Chinese, which made everyone laugh! (Laughing is affirmation in their culture) 🙂

On “cue”, Tim came running in– followed by another singer, from the other direction! That singer had told me she couldn’t join us after all. Which is why our choir was surprised when she came in!  She told me later, she was in the overflow room when it happened and some people said, “Hey, they’re waiting for you!” So she came in too!

With a small choir of 8, every member there or missing, was definitely noticed and valued.  I even had to double as a tenor, so my husband wouldn’t have to sing tenor alone!  Once assembled, we gave our all for our Resurrected Lord, and He filled it with His glory.

Singing, speaking, silence, snafus and all– everyone enjoyed celebrating and went away rejoicing!

Why?  Because even though those awkward imperfections happened, we all:

• Laughed and let them be part of the “fun” instead of getting upset
• Made the best of them
• The joy of what we were celebrating—Jesus’ Resurrection—victory over sin and death, far outweighed anything “going wrong”
• Let them draw us closer to each other as a community, as we supported each other and responded empathetically together.
• Knew this would give us something to talk and laugh about together for days and years to come.

No one who came will ever forget this year’s Resurrection Sunday celebration!  As to our visitors, maybe they’ll return to see if our church services are always this funny! 🙂

Meanwhile, we learned a valuable life-lesson—how to keep the right perspective so we can rejoice in the “even-though”s, that mature us when we let them.