My worse public speaking experience was once when I was asked to lead a prayer at my church back in Pitman, NJ. I was recently baptized and was new to the church. I was probably around 23 years of age. I was scheduled to lead the main prayer at a Wednesday night service. I had thought about the prayer before going forward to lead it but when I got up there in front of the congregation, my mind went totally blank and I mean totally blank! I had not made any notes of what I was going to say so I had nothing to refer to. I just stood there totally silent for what seemed like several minutes. In reality it was probably about 30 seconds or so. Not being familiar with the normal prayer comments, nothing came to mind to say. I just completed the prayer by saying Amen and went and sat down. Needless to say, I was totally embarrassed and never wanted to say another prayer in public again.
One of the church leaders came up to me after services and said that happens to all of us at some point. That comment was helpful but I made sure that, at a minimum, I would have notes of my comments before doing another public prayer, just in case.
Gary Schwertly
CFO
