Encore! Encore!
Recently, I attended a theatre show featuring a stand-up comic who was wonderfully funny. After he’d walked off stage to rapturous applause, the crowd began cheering and clapping even louder, willing him to come back. Some of the crowd called out, “Encore! Encore!”, and eventually, he returned to do another 10 minutes on stage. It all got me thinking: “Why don’t we call for encores at church?”
Imagine if someone preached a fantastic sermon that stirred your emotions, challenged your thinking, taught you something new, made you smile and allowed you to hear God himself speaking to you. After the sermon there were people praying together in their seats, seekers at the mercy seat and words of encouragement shared between members of the congregation.
Why not then call for an encore? It seems odd to hear a great sermon and be moved deeply, and then say, “No more; that’s enough from you.” Why not hear some more and receive further blessing?
When I was growing up, there was an elderly saint at our corps who gave the best testimonies. He quoted Scripture easily and often and spoke of how God was working in his life in real and unmistakable ways. Often, at the end of his testimonies, I felt like saying, “Keep speaking! More, more.” It was the same as thinking, “Encore! Encore!”
Perhaps you’ve heard a powerful vocal solo or a moving item from a musical group, and you’ve wanted to hear it performed again. Or maybe it was a funny and interactive children’s story that you wanted to go longer. There have even been times when a pianist has played during the offering, and I wanted them to take up the offering slower because I was enjoying the song being played!
I think the closest I’ve come to including an encore in a meeting is when, very occasionally, I’ve opened with a song that really fit the theme well and then closed with the same song. A few people in the congregation might have thought it odd to sing the same song twice but most saw the relevance and appropriateness of it.
Mind you, now that I think about it, if we’re going to adopt the theatre practice of calling for encores … what is the opposite? What should we do when the sermon is boring, the vocal solo is out of tune, the band piece is too long, and the children’s story is heretical?
Should we throw tomatoes or old cabbages? Should we storm out? Should we write bad reviews online? Should we boo? Perhaps we should start a slow handclap and chant ‘borrrrrrring’.
Hmm, maybe some grace is called for. Perhaps after enduring an out-of-tune vocal solo, we just need to say, “Well, I’m sure God appreciated that. Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to work on my tolerance and patience; it’s character-building. Enduring that horribly discordant cacophony is helping me become holier. I can feel the holiness spreading through my body even as I sit here.”
Next Sunday, call for an encore after something in the meeting and see what happens. But not after the offering – they’ll send the offering bags around twice!
Major Mal Davies is the Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.
