Can Satan Really Sabotage Your Service?

Easter Sunday. It's the biggest Sunday of the year, where we celebrate the defining moment of our faith: Christ's resurrection from the dead.

It's the Sunday that most people attend a church service, especially the un-churched and out-of-towners. Of all the services throughout the year, this is the one where everything should run smoothly, nothing going wrong. 

And for our church, production-wise, everything that could go wrong... DID go wrong.

Was Satan trying to throw off our service for the day? Yes... and no. 

Let's divide what goes wrong in a service and who is to blame. 

What Went Wrong?

This past spring season, we've made several updates in our behind-the-scenes production, chiefly in putting in a new in-ear monitor system. We debuted the new system on Palm Sunday, and it was flawless—everything worked. 

Fast forward to Easter Sunday morning for 8:00 soundcheck... nothing was working right. The brand-new mixers for each band member wouldn't allow for any control, and the channel assignments were completely wrong. If someone tried to turn up guitar in their mix, they would turn up the piano instead—and it was like that for ALL the instruments and singers!

To top it all off, our projection computer didn't recognize our displays, so we had to scramble and override settings in the computer Terminal app to get things working the right way again. (We had also planned to cast an iPhone live from the baptistry to the screen, but this, too, didn't happen because of tech going haywire.)

When the service finally started (we delayed by 5 minutes to account for the tech triage), we played our first two songs and exited the stage. One of our team members mentioned that during the set, he totally lost signal for a variety of channels, in the middle of playing! He had to just "feel" the room and make sure he was performing in time with the rest of the band. 

How Did We Fix It? 

Ultimately, we got the computer displays figured out before service started, but it took a bit of complex re-writing to solve the problem. But with the IEMs, we had go into the service relying on our preparation and experience to compensate for not being able to hear the parts sufficiently; it was like "flying blind." 

Still, we had to actively solve the problem when we could—which meant we had to do systems checks during the sermon before the next set of songs. 

Like with any tech problem, we started with the basics: Was everything plugged in correctly? We'd already checked connections on-stage, but we still needed to check the connections to the unit off-stage. 

After the first set of songs, I worked my way back to the wing where our off-stage rack units are stored. Coming from the unit that took care of our on-stage IEMs were several cables that we'd made in-house (this important to remember), and I started running down each cable, checking where they each connected into the rack unit. To my surprise, I could push each cable in by about 1 mm! 

Once the cables were re-seated, all I could do was hope for the best—and we moved on with the second set of songs for the service. Afterwards, I asked the band if things had improved, and to my relief, everyone confirmed that they had full control over their sound and everything was in its proper place. 

Why Did Things Go Wrong?

In these scenarios, it's easy to blame "technology" or even Satan for attempting to interfere with the service. As I told a few people this past week about what happened, some of them pointed to the Enemy as "getting in and messing things up, like he always does."

Except, I don't necessarily agree with that. 😬

Here's why we had problems:

• Our in-house cables had connectors that were slightly too big for the ports in our units. The result? They worked themselves loose—it's PHYSICS. 

• Our computer was set for the latest updates from Apple, which installed the morning of our service, and it re-configured how our computer recognized external displays. It was a simple error of BAD TIMING.

These are the circumstances that occurred because of choices WE made: 

• Using cheaper, easy-to-use connectors when we should've used proper, industry-standard pieces.

• Keeping auto-updates on our computer when we should've turned them off.

In all of this, I honestly don't see the enemy as a sort of "gremlin," where he somehow manipulates something physical to go wrong. BUT he often uses the mishaps to work into our minds and undermine our attitude in worship, distracting us from our purpose. 

When things go wrong, Satan can tempt us to:

• Blame people.

• Resent our circumstances. 

• Obsess (unhealthily) over details. 

When this occurs, we lose sight of singular focus on glorifying God with our abilities and attention and sharing those with others. 

Now, was the service derailed? 

NO! Despite the obstacles and setbacks, our team received feedback that was overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. In the end, Satan failed (like he is often wont to do).

Final Thoughts (and a Confession)

It's important to note that while your preparation and experience are important parts in keeping things together when everything else seems to be falling apart, you MUST maintain a perspective of thankfulness and expectation in corporately worshipping God.

And I must admit, this was hard for me to remember—and my "fix-it" mode took over my overall mindset instead of keeping a heart focused on savoring the work of Jesus, which was the WHOLE POINT of Resurrection Sunday! 

Still, I'm grateful for the expertise of our team and how they rose to the occasion, and I'm even more grateful for the grace of our Lord—who always wins the day to connect with those who love and worship Him, despite circumstances that the enemy might use to thwart His purpose.

Be blessed 👊✌️