Today God gave me and my wife an opportunity to add a new facet to our marriage and our ministry. Let me explain and give you some of the details.
A local Baptist church, not ½ a mile away from my house held a “Street Party For Jesus” today. That church asked some of the other churches in the area to contribute to the entertainment portion of the festival. My church was given the last hour, 4PM. We only had to entertain for 30 minutes though.
Because he had other commitments for the day and may not be able to be there my pastor asked me to be the coordinator of the event. I planned on doing a ventriloquist sketch and needed some singers to fill the rest of our time. Although I sent out a call for singers to be part of the program everyone who wanted to sing already had plans. So to help me out my wife agreed to sing.
Saturday morning she did some rehearsing in our living room. As she was trying to decide what to sing we came up with the idea of singing a duet.
I opened with my “vent” sketch. I did the same routine with my puppet, Calvin that I did at Iva Baptist Church a few weeks ago. The sketch went okay but as always I think I could have done better. A picture of my performance is at the top of this post.
After my sketch Paula and I sang a duet. It was a song I knew from when I was a kid, Happiness Is The Lord. My pastor actually made it to the event so he introduced us. We had rehearsed at home and I thought we were prepared. As it turns out I wasn’t. My mind was still on the vent performance and I started the song with the 3rd verse. Being the good wife she is Paula followed right along with me. After we finished the 3rd verse I had my wits about me again and we started from the beginning. We got all the way through the song without any further mistakes.
Paula then sang a couple of verses of the song “In The Garden.” She was a lot more relaxed singing by herself and did a wonderful job. I ended our time “on stage” by playing the songs, “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “When The Role Is Called Up Yonder” on my harmonica.
We stayed and watched the next performers for a while. We got a few nice comments from both the members of our church who were there and people we didn’t know. It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means but it was a good one. Singing together is something we’ve talked about doing for a long time. Today we finally did it.
There are 3 things I would like to add about this experience. First, is the fact that now that we have the first time “under our belt” my wife and I can start rehearsing to sing together in our church.
Second, until today I had seen our two ministries (my ventriloquism and my wife’s singing) as two separate things that wouldn’t ever have any common ground. Now that they’ve worked together once I can see the potential for them working together in the future. Our ministries are different but they both have the same purpose: to deliver the gospel and minister to people.
Third, I have made a couple of decisions about my ventriloquism after today’s performance. I need to practice on a regular basis. That’s nothing new. I have known that I need to practice, practice, practice for a long time. The other decision is that I’m going to stop being so critical of myself after my performances. I know I’m still learning and as long as I do my best I need to give my performances up to God as a sacrifice and leave them with him. I need to only make positive observances about them. That will make my ministry a service to God and His Glory and not a pursuit to exalt myself or feed my ego.
Today was the first day of a very big weekend for my ventriloquism. Tomorrow I am doing a sketch in the morning worship service at church and then in Children’s Church. I’ll let you know how those went tomorrow. Today was a memorable day. I thank God for putting me in the place of opportunity and giving me a wonderful marriage partner who was willing to go there with me.
A local Baptist church, not ½ a mile away from my house held a “Street Party For Jesus” today. That church asked some of the other churches in the area to contribute to the entertainment portion of the festival. My church was given the last hour, 4PM. We only had to entertain for 30 minutes though.
Because he had other commitments for the day and may not be able to be there my pastor asked me to be the coordinator of the event. I planned on doing a ventriloquist sketch and needed some singers to fill the rest of our time. Although I sent out a call for singers to be part of the program everyone who wanted to sing already had plans. So to help me out my wife agreed to sing.
Saturday morning she did some rehearsing in our living room. As she was trying to decide what to sing we came up with the idea of singing a duet.
I opened with my “vent” sketch. I did the same routine with my puppet, Calvin that I did at Iva Baptist Church a few weeks ago. The sketch went okay but as always I think I could have done better. A picture of my performance is at the top of this post.
After my sketch Paula and I sang a duet. It was a song I knew from when I was a kid, Happiness Is The Lord. My pastor actually made it to the event so he introduced us. We had rehearsed at home and I thought we were prepared. As it turns out I wasn’t. My mind was still on the vent performance and I started the song with the 3rd verse. Being the good wife she is Paula followed right along with me. After we finished the 3rd verse I had my wits about me again and we started from the beginning. We got all the way through the song without any further mistakes.
Paula then sang a couple of verses of the song “In The Garden.” She was a lot more relaxed singing by herself and did a wonderful job. I ended our time “on stage” by playing the songs, “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “When The Role Is Called Up Yonder” on my harmonica.
We stayed and watched the next performers for a while. We got a few nice comments from both the members of our church who were there and people we didn’t know. It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means but it was a good one. Singing together is something we’ve talked about doing for a long time. Today we finally did it.
There are 3 things I would like to add about this experience. First, is the fact that now that we have the first time “under our belt” my wife and I can start rehearsing to sing together in our church.
Second, until today I had seen our two ministries (my ventriloquism and my wife’s singing) as two separate things that wouldn’t ever have any common ground. Now that they’ve worked together once I can see the potential for them working together in the future. Our ministries are different but they both have the same purpose: to deliver the gospel and minister to people.
Third, I have made a couple of decisions about my ventriloquism after today’s performance. I need to practice on a regular basis. That’s nothing new. I have known that I need to practice, practice, practice for a long time. The other decision is that I’m going to stop being so critical of myself after my performances. I know I’m still learning and as long as I do my best I need to give my performances up to God as a sacrifice and leave them with him. I need to only make positive observances about them. That will make my ministry a service to God and His Glory and not a pursuit to exalt myself or feed my ego.
Today was the first day of a very big weekend for my ventriloquism. Tomorrow I am doing a sketch in the morning worship service at church and then in Children’s Church. I’ll let you know how those went tomorrow. Today was a memorable day. I thank God for putting me in the place of opportunity and giving me a wonderful marriage partner who was willing to go there with me.
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