This past Sunday morning, the early worship service at the church I serve as pastor seemed perfect — or so I thought. A couple had shared about their call to missions. A man had shared how Jesus had saved him from sin and changed his life so much that his whole family accepted Christ. People had come forward to join the church, and we had closed with a reverent celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

It was a perfect worship service, right? Wrong! I called on our music minister to close the service with a celebration song, and the instruments began to play, but instead of walking to the pulpit to lead the song, the music minister walked over to me, leaned near my ear, and said, “We haven’t taken the offering.” Unknown to me, the ushers already had offering plates in their hands, waiting to take up the offering, but no opportunity had been given to give. One usher who was waiting with an offering plate in his hand had five different people throw their offering into his plate, just in case they didn’t get another chance to give.

When I realized my mistake, I told the music minister to stop the music, and he stopped them in mid-note. Then I turned to the surprised congregation and said, “I forgot the offering.” I continued by saying, “I want to say two things about this. One, I am not a perfect pastor, and two, nobody can say that all we care about at this church is your money, because I just about forgot to take up the offering at all.”

As the ushers took the offering amidst the laughter of the congregation, I sat down next to a deacon. He patted my knee and wisely said, “It happens.” So much for the perfect worship service. But wait — maybe it was perfect after all. It was a perfect reminder that none of us humans are perfect, but the God we worship is!

(Copyright 2011 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read my blog at www.holyhumor.blogspot.com.)