You chose:

E) Finish the song how it is, and look forward to the juicy 2-hour lunch conversation at Chipotle on the church credit card with the worship team, discussing the spiritual shortcomings of every modern-day church attender except for yourself.

(If you’re confused right now, that’s okay. Just listen to some U2, and read part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4 of the Worship Leading Choose Your Own Ending series, of which this post is the latest installment. The listening to U2 part really has nothing to with it.)

You end the song, letting the last little bit of Timeline-delayed Wampler Ecstasy subtle drive fade out on that lovely G chord, and of course harboring a hidden bitterness against the pastor for starting his closing monologue before the 14th echo of your last chord fully smeared out. (The Timeline has smear. It’s wonderful.) The pastor dismisses the congregation, saying something mildly humorous about whatever football team is in closest proximity to the church, as you nod and give a loud stage mime chuckle even though you’re not listening but instead are on one knee manually and unnecessarily fading out the delay mix knob on your other Timeline, so that everyone knows that you really do know what you’re doing on a pedalboard that size, no matter what the sound tech jokingly asks you every single Sunday.

The pastor says his last word, and quick as the popularity half-life of any Facebook-hyped new boutique pedal, the drummer clicks off the tempo and you jump in to a much more rocked out version of your opening song before the sound tech can turn on the house music. As if programmed into the subconscious of your string-plucking minds, you, the other guitarist, the worship leader, and the bassist instantly go to your amps and turn them up. All bets are off for the closing song. People’s worship of course increases exponentially with the decibel level of the guitar amps (provided they are tube, point-to-point, and no one else has the same one except for every single person on The Gear Page), so the loudness of your amp blowing directly past your knees on stage and right at the ear of the people who have come to the front of the stage for prayer, is only helping them to worship God more fully.

Quickly your eyes scan the room for young hipster kids learning guitar making their way to the front of the stage to compliment your awesomeness and gawk at your pedalboard. You see them. Coming down the middle isle. The moment of truth. Which way are the going to turn? You see the indecision in their eyes. Here it comes…no! Really?! They walk up to the other guitarist. He smiles graciously at them, as you turn on six delay pedals and take an unscripted solo. You look back at them. Still not coming over to you! Because the other guitarist is taking his guitar off and letting them take turns playing it! What a jerk. They totally would have come over to you if he wasn’t so nice. No one cares about good tone these days.

You rip through your solo, the song ends, and you make a big show of turning on your tuner mute button, unplugging your guitar, and going to get your guitar case while your delay is still ringing out your last chord. It makes you awesome. You know it. And quicker than the stupid uncontrollable second delay time setting on the dual delay mode of a DD20, you and the rest of the band are out the back door and off to Chipotle. You can still hear your TC Hall of Fame reverb lusciously wofting out a Jesus Culture toneprint as the back door clicks shut. The coolest thing about being a worship musician is that, without lifting a finger, every direct box, mic cable, mic stand, music stand (although not yours…you don’t use a music stand, because true worshipers learn the songs…even if it means you hitting multiple wrong chords), and your equipment, is always somehow magically picked up after each Sunday morning, and will magically re-appear in its proper place for the Sunday night college service stage setup or for the next week’s rehearsal. You’re still not sure exactly how that happens.

You all pile into the worship leader’s Escalade, which he obviously paid for by only buying clothes from the Salvation Army’s hipster section, crank up some Gungor so that everyone knows you listen to the cool underground Christian music that hasn’t been discovered yet except by the record company who bought the music and distributed it to everywhere, and you’re off to Chipotle. You stop on the way to graciously mingle with some of the church people…no, you didn’t.

You all walk into the Chipotle together. It’s like a scene from some nerdy ’90′s pre-teen tv show, and you’re dressed the same way too. At first the servers think you might be a gang, but after a few seconds of watching you take yourselves way too seriously as you joke about things that ‘normal church people’ would probably be offended by but it’s okay because you’re post-modern, but without ever uttering any real curse words besides the occasional under-your-breath ones followed by a snicker, the entire restaurant comes to the conclusion that you are indeed a church worship band. And when you order your food without any indication of the servers’ presence except possibly one of slight annoyance at their very existence, it removes all doubt.

You sit down to eat outside. You’re talking, laughing, discussing how much better high-end response your new Tung Sol’s had than your reissue Mullard’s, and it happens. You’ve been spotted. The table next to yours. Atheists, discussing atheist things! They’ve recognized you as a Christian. Blast! They must’ve seen your JHS Pedals t-shirt! You try to escape, but it’s too late. They want to talk. Quick as the sanded neck of a bird’s eye maple D’Pergo, you…

A) Point to them and scream, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ and go scattering off from your table in all directions.

B) Look down at your food and give the worship leader the, ‘You’re the one paid by the church’ glance.

C) Kindly nod and smile and give the bare minimum answer to each question until they get bored and go away.

D) Tell them that God isn’t man-made but that God made man, or any other stock Christian Facebook status update quote, and when they ask how you know, simply repeat yourself.

E) Change the subject because you’re scared, but tell yourself it’s because you’re trying to get to know them and have a relationship with them before you eventually lay down the gauntlet…in 15 years.

F) Say, ‘Pay it forward.’ You don’t know why. You just say it.

G) Engage in a lengthy discussion where you inexplicably and confusedly end up explaining in depth the day/age theory of Genesis that you heard about once during a message you weren’t really listening to.

H) Ask if they play guitar, and if they do, ask if they are interested in buying that Zendrive you’re selling.

I) Act like a big deal. You kind of have to, because everyone outside the church for some reason just treats you like a normal person, not the church rockstar like which you’ve grown accustomed to being treated.

J) Use your knowledge of the Bible to mercilessly attack their views, and then humiliate them by filming it and putting it on YouTube, so that if they ever actually take your advice and read the Bible for themselves, they can run across John 13:35 about knowing Christians by their love, conclude that since you cared more about winning the argument and your conquest than you did about seeing them understand God’s love, that you yourself are conceivably possibly not a Christian, which sends them into confusion and quite possibly atheism all over again. (Sorry, I couldn’t hold out much longer.)

K) Pretend you’re done with your meal, apologize, and leave the table, subtly leaving behind an invite card for your Sunday night church service, and then pat yourself on the back later for your fine job of witnessing.

L) Yell at the Chipotle worker cleaning the tables that you need more napkins, then turn politely to the atheists and say, ‘I’m sorry, what was it you were wondering about Christianity?’

M) Engage in a huge, bitterly fought argument, both sides throwing facts around built on premises that the other does not believe, until no one is sure what to say, and then leave awkwardly.

N) Engage in a huge, bitterly fought argument, both sides throwing facts around built on premises that the other does not believe, until no one is sure what to say, and then put on your church smile, hand them the invite card for your service times and say, ‘Here’s my card. You should come visit us sometime!’

O) Immediately close your eyes and warrior pray for their souls. Ignore their calls of ‘Excuse me, sir? Excuse me?’

P) Say a bunch of Christian things that they obviously don’t agree with, and then pretend as if you won the argument.

Q) Kindly answer their questions, and treat them like…oh sweet mercy…like people. Try to love them enough to care not just about their eternal destiny, but about them as people. And not just about making friends with them, but about their eternal destiny. You wave goodbye after a nice, humanly, respectful conversation, and ask God for the love to remember to ask them to dinner, and not solely to whip out your nine spiritual laws tract.

And as usual, you can’t choose the last one.

Splendid.
Karl.

P.S. I know I may have been a little harsh in this one, but for what it’s worth, my honest answer is usually ‘E’. I’ve got some work to do, too.