#369. The magical things that happen on stage when you close your eyes to pray.
Aug 4th by JonI am not good at closing my eyes during prayer. I know that is something that should be amazingly easy to be good at, but I’ve still found some way to suck. I only have two moves. One of my moves is to do that thing we all did as little kids, where you press your hands against your eyes so hard you see little fireworks and dazzling colors inside your eyelids. The other is that I close them just enough to look holy but still keep them open. Why do I do this? I don’t want to miss anything that’s happening up on the stage.
Watching the people in charge of transforming the stage for the next portion of a service is one of my favorite parts of church. Like a hidden culture or long lost tribe, they materialize from the shadows, carrying guitars, moving drums, switching out sets. And then, like the Keebler Elves they return back to their lair, never to be seen again. They are elusive my friend, they are a secret and private people. But after years of studying them, I am finally ready to reveal what I have learned about what happens on the stage while your eyes are closed in prayer:
1. Musicians magically appear.
There are primarily three people groups that inhabit the shadows of a church stage. The stage hands, the pastors and the musicians. Of the three groups, I find the musicians to be the most entertaining to watch. It’s fun to try to guess the songs they’ll sing simply by observing who is coming out and what instruments are present. “Is that the angry girl singer? The one that I love but kind of sings like she might fight me in the parking lot?” “Ohhh, multiple guitars, that increases our chance of hearing ‘Blessed Be The Name’ but 37%.” “Interesting, only one piano and one musician. Cue dramatic spotlight, it’s serious, sad song time.”
2. The pastor materializes from the crowd.
I don’t care how many times I see it, every time a pastor walks on stage from the crowd I am surprised. I guess I sometimes think pastors are kept in secret rooms in the back somewhere or hyperbaric chambers during the worship. And then when the singing is over, they get a call on a red phone like old school Batman. I know that’s dumb but when I see them walk out of the crowd, I always have an US Magazine moment, “Hey, the pastor is just like me. He sits in a seat, in an aisle, just like me. Yay!”
3. That table and chair appear.
I have written about this table and chair/stool a few times before. It’s the little set of “sermon furniture” that the guy who once sold hymnals has been forced to sell to churches across the country now that praise songs are so big. If I could invest in those tables and chairs I would already be a Christian thousandaire, but nobody really knows where they came from. I always assume that the stage hands have like a Navy Seals training course they have to go through if they want to be one of the elite members of the team that is allowed to actually touch these pieces of furniture. Anyone can carry a microphone stand. You gotta work your way up to “that table and chair.” That’s the big leagues son.
4. Stage hands have animated conversations.
Sometimes a piece of equipment is missing. And you’ll see an excited, completely silent conversation happen on stage. It’s kind of like that old kid’s show where two people say pieces of a word until they build a complete word. You’d see the silhouette of one person start a word and then the silhouette of another person finish it. “Ch”, “air,” “Chair.” I like to write those conversations in my head and pretend that they are saying things like this:
Stage Hand 1: “Where are the drums?”
Stage Hand 2: “What drums?”
Stage Hand 1: “The drums we’ve had every Sunday for the last 14 months.”
Stage Hand 2: “Oh those drums. We sold them.”
Stage Hand 1: “What? Why?”
Stage Hand 2: “We needed to buy a new plexiglass fishbowl to keep the drummer in.”
Stage Hand 1: “You sold the drums to buy a plastic wall for the drummer. That’s ridiculous. What’s he going to play now?”
Stage Hand 2: “The triangle. We’re moving to an all triangle worship format. It will be very relevant. This culture is desperate for more triangle.”
Stage Hand 1: “Please don’t make a cowbell joke.”
Stage Hand 2: “Too late. Cowbell!”
I know what you’re thinking, all of those things sound pretty delightful but your church has a fixed stage. The pastor sits in a big chair, the organ is nailed down to the floor. Fear not, I love traditional churches too. I suggest you start moving stuff around on stage by yourself. Just bring an extra candle or a small framed photo of a waterfall or sunset (we love singing songs with those backgrounds). Then when everybody has their eyes closed praying, sneak quietly up on stage, do a few quick rearrangements and sit back down. I don’t know your church personally but I don’t think they’ll mind.
p.s. thanks Jesse for this fun idea.
second p.s. – Someone brought up a great point. If you throw the God card and say, “I guess for me, prayer time is about communing with God,” I will throw the God card right back at you and say, “I am not encouraging you to ignore prayer. I love quiet, eyes closed prayer too. God told me to occasionally peek through my fingers during prayer time and witness the beauty of His stage hands serving Him and His body of believers through proper stage management and guitar placement.”
Comments
anon @ 2:17, it WAS Morgan Freeman! Electric Company rocks.
HaHa, I like how you referred to them as “people groups”. That Christian meme always strikes me as funny.
I don’t know how you keep doing it, Jon. Fantastic post on so many levels.
Bill
~Best piece of advice I ever got as a young deacon just starting out in a fairly large church:
[Older Deacon: Son, as a deacon in this church, 'Never-ever' close your eyes during the prayer time...
Don't trust those pastors (We have 3 pastors) kids one single bit...or you're a 'Gone-er' here.]
Why do people even close their eyes when they pray? I just don’t get it. You don’t close your eyes when you’re standing there talking to your friend Steve. Are people imagining God in their head when they close their eyes? Really… enlighten me.
My husband just reminded me that he can’t recall a place in the Bible that instructs us to close our eyes during prayer. The Bible does tell us to “watch as well as pray” though!
Jon-
The “magic” first happened for me while visiting your church this past June. Worship was over and someone prayed. When I opened my eyes, there was your beloved “Batman” with his stool and table. The lighting had changed and everything. I turned to my husband and said “Where did the band go?” It was like they had been vaporized. It was magical indeed
so true. As a worship leader, I’ve always disliked changing sets during the prayer time, because I find it hard to pray when I’m setting up and worrying about the set … but, I also found it fun to be stealthy and “appear” on stage at the end of the prayer. *shrugs*
I feel awful — like a child who was just disabused of the idea that Santa is actually Mom and Dad. You mean to tell me that the changes I see up front were not the magical working of the Holy Spirit? L I B.
our worship pastor will pray out loud with his eyes open, looking around. It freaks everyone out and is pretty hilarious to watch others make eye contact withhim, as he is praying and they are supposed to have their eyes closed!
Once, during my short stint on the worship team, I got so carried away with actually praying that I missed the secret cue to come up on stage for the second set. Oops.
It’s what we call the Chuckee Cheese Moment. When all the instrumentalists stay in place as the curtain closes and the pastor takes the podium. Then, after the sermon, the curtains open AND THERE THEY ARE!! Like suspended puppets!
Have they been sitting there for the entire 30 minute sermon??! Silent like plush puppets?
I have entirely different reasons for not closing my eyes during prayer, specifically “stand-up” prayer (you know, before/during/or immediately following “stand up and sing” time). I have zero sense of proprioception and if I stand up and close my eyes, not only will I sway dangerously, but there’s a good chance I might sway so violently that in an effort to prevent myself from actually falling down, I stick my foot out and manage to step on the person sitting next to me. That, or I crash into them. No matter what your 3rd grade Sunday School teacher told you, if it means you won’t be stepping on little Cody or sweet Mrs. Fifferman whose bone density is at like 2%, it’s perfectly fine to keep your eyes open during prayer. Just look straight up (to the heavens) or straight down (at your not-as-holy feet) to avoid being distracted…by all that commotion on stage…
I'm late to this SCL party, but am enjoying working my way through…
My son once witnessed the paper "wax drip catcher" on the pastor's Chrismtas Eve candle go up in flames while the pastor was leading the congregation in parayer. The pastor, feeling his hand getting hot, opened his eyes, realized the dilema & took his free hand & snuffed out the flames with one quick move while continuing in prayer. No one, save my son, even noticed!
I'm a youth pastor who occasionally leads worship at my church. The 'regular' worship team usually sneaks around during prayer, but I've specifically told me team – comprised of students, "While the community is praying, it's alright if we pray, as well. We'll just walk up after the prayer."
There's never been a perceived lack of, "communion with God," because the congregation sees us walking on stage. There's not a stutter in their time of worship. I think they're relatively understanding that it actually takes time to get on stage, and then we can worship in a different way – through music.
The issue at church doesn't need to be clean transitions, pretty lights, good performances, balanced eqs, trendy ingitermedia video clips, countdowns or anything else. I use all of those things in my ministry. They all serve to aid us in the pursuit of God.
I guess I've just always figure THAT was what church was about.
[...] that’s how I treat my church’s production staff. From the sound guys to the pastor to those magical people who make stuff disappear from stage during prayers, I have incredibly unforgiving standards when it comes to [...]
People? What People? I thought it was magic?!
I'm the worship team leader/guitar player at my church of about 500 members and we have an hour devoted in the morning service to only prayer and songs. There's always something wrong with the slides or mics (no disrespect to the AV guys, I love them), so before almost every prayer I look at my other team members and mouth or nod where they should go and they know what they have to do. Then when the prayer starts, a coordinated effort begins to solve all the problems and then rush back to your spot before the prayer is over and close your eyes so people don't think you were gone.
Am I trying to pretend I was praying the whole time? No, I don't want to fake it, but there's no point in me walking down late and distracting everyone.