The Green Room

If you have recently attended Calvary Memorial Church in Gering, you have probably noticed the musicians on the worship team as they sidle up the west side aisle, one or two at a time, a few minutes before each service is scheduled to start, only to disappear through the door at the front of the sanctuary. You have probably figured out that we go there, to the Green Room, to get ready for the service.

I don't know how long it's been called the Green Room--certainly longer than the ten plus years I've been attending Calvary Memorial. I can only surmise that it got its name because the room, with its one khaki green wall and aging green carpet, left over from the seventies, has a function somewhat similar to those infamous Hollywood Green Rooms, where celebrities wait (and often eat and drink to excess) until it is time for them to perform on some variety show or late evening talk show.

I hope I don't need to assure you that the atmosphere in Calvary's Green Room is much different than anything Hollywood has to offer. For starters, I've never known anyone to eat anything there, unless you consider a cough drop or breath mint to be real food. Occasionally, someone may take a sip of water, or finish the last swallow from a cup of coffee that has been nursed throughout the morning. 

I've heard that some Hollywood Green Rooms are well-furnished with comfortable couches and chairs. Our Green Room isn't really furnished at all. Some of us sit on a couple of stray stools that are stored there, or on the spare piano bench that has found a home in the Green Room. One lucky person might get to lounge on the steps that lead up to the baptistry, but first we might need to move the piano cover that is often tossed there until it's needed to cover the grand piano again, after the second service is over. A couple of people have no choice except to stand, or lean against a wall. (We've learned, the hard way, that it isn't really safe to lean against a door.)

To be truthful, we consider our Green Room to be well-furnished when we can find a full Kleenex box or the Scotch tape we need to hold our music together.

The Green Room

Our Green Room isn't really a room at all; it's more like a winding hallway that leads from one side of the sanctuary, down a single step so we can walk behind the stage in an upright position as we pass under the giant, bathtub-like tank used for baptisms, and then back up a couple more steps that lead to the door on the other side of the sanctuary. There is another staircase on that side, too, that leads up to the baptistry but, for some reason, that staircase has become a storage area for odds and ends of musical equipment, so it is rarely used during baptisms.

(On a side note, I will just mention that the normally chilly Green Room becomes quite warm and humid on those Sundays when the heated baptismal tank is filling up with water. And, I'm happy to report that the tank has only leaked once in my memory, and that was easily sopped up with a few towels, and repaired the next day.)

The walls of the Green Room are lined with bookshelves, file cabinets used to store music, and various wreaths that might be needed again someday. A closet-like nook under one set of stairs is used to store extra mike stands, music stands, and the like. Another closet, on one stair landing, is used to store a few artificial flower arrangements.

One more staircase leads down to the basement Sunday School rooms, with an outside exit on the landing that leads to an enclosed courtyard containing mechanical equipment of various kinds. A few worship team members have learned, regrettably, that it is not a good idea to use that exit, because there is really no place to go, and the door has the unfortunate habit of locking behind anyone who goes out that way. There is an outdoor staircase leading up to the balcony at the back of the sanctuary, so it has been possible to alert someone on the tech team by knocking at the door at the top of those stairs, but that is rather noisy and embarrassing during a worship service, or so I've been told.

So, five or six worship team members gather together before each service, talking quietly among ourselves until nearly everyone arrives in the Green Room. Then, we pray together, asking God to prepare the hearts and minds of the people who are gathering to worship. We ask him to open the eyes of the people who don't know him, so they can see him as he really is, and yearn to know him. Someone will usually ask God to give Pastor Gary everything he needs to present the sermon in a way that is meaningful to the people in the congregation. It isn't uncommon for someone to ask God to comfort those who are grieving, and heal those who have been sick. Someone usually asks that God will guide the fingers and voices of the musicians, and enable the tech team to do their jobs well, up in the balcony, as they run the computer and sound system that have become so necessary for twenty-first century corporate worship. And then, someone will often ask God to allow the worship team to fade into the background, so that the people are able to focus on God and worship him truly, without any distraction.

That is always our prayer, whether spoken aloud, or not, because we do not consider the work of the worship team to be a performance. Rather, as a wise pastor once taught us, it is our job to usher the people into God's presence, and then get out of the way. We want to use the musical gifts God has given us to simply worship him, and to lead other people into his presence.

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. 

Psalm 100