This past Sunday I accomplished 2 things I’ve never done before. I broke 2 strings on 2 different guitars and one of the strings I broke was the D string…on an acoustic! That’s hard to do. I felt sick when I woke up that morning and I knew it was going to be a struggle, I prayed for it not to be, but I knew I was going to have to push through. In fact it reminded me of something one of my old pastors used to tell me.

95% of the Christian walk is digging and fighting in the trenches. Maybe 5% of it is mountain top experiences.

In this worship trench in the middle of “So Near” I snapped a string on my electric which had a 2 pronged effect. Screwing up the back half of So Near and causing me to think what song I was going to play next instead of what was planned. We were planning on doing an electrified remix of Kevin Prosch’s “So Come“, but that wasn’t going to work on my backup guitar which was an acoustic. (note to self, keep an electric backup) So I decided to do “Everlasting God” by New Life acoustically last.

That actually went well and I walked off stage feeling like we weathered the storm. Sure it wasn’t the smoothest of set, but we managed to get through it. At the end of the sermon my pastor asked me to play “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. Wouldn’t you know it, in the middle of that song I broke the D string(the D string!) on the acoustic. 2 strings, 2 guitars, 2 awkward recoveries.

I’ve become pretty good at ripping off the snapped string and carrying on, but when you are the only guitarist, there’s no hiding being out of tune once a string snaps. I rarely break strings, never broken 2 in one set and never a D string. I figure I should be good for a long time for string breakage.

1. You Love Me Forever – Merchant Band (loop not yet available)
2. Dress Us Up – John Mark McMillan
3. Gloria 34 – Taylor Sorensen (loop available)
4. So Near – Vineyard UK (loop available)
5. Everlasting God – New Life (loop available)
6. How He Loves – John Mark McMillan (end of service)

This post is part of Fred McKinnon’s Set List Sundays.

Related posts

• Sunday Set List: “Vacations and Weariness is upon us” (4)
• Sunday Set List: “Take a breath, but wake up” (5)
• Sunday Set List: “Skeleton Bones kickoff” (5)