Funny church story

Today, during the 11:00 traditional service, the preacher was just getting into his sermon. He was sharing this illustration about a humble bagel maker. As he's getting to the close of the illustration, he gets flustered all of a sudden. He looks down at the pulpit, looks up at the congregation and says, "My sermon's not here." Well...being the kind of preacher who is totally dependent upon his manuscript, he was in big trouble.

He pauses for a moment, obviously trying to figure out exactly what he was going to do next. He looks aver to me sitting in the first pew and says that he'd like for us to sing a hymn while he runs and gets his sermon from his office. When I get up to the pulpit, I, of course, have to say something to the effect of, "I won't tell you that I don't have my hymnal this morning, because I remembered to bring it with me."

So, we sing a couple of stanzas of "Holy, Holy, Holy." That hymn sure didn't fit the theme of this morning, but I only had a couple of seconds to pick one out of about 700, so I thought the first one in the book would be as good as any.

Everything after that was great, not excluding the sermon which turned out well. It's just one of those things that happens I guess.