Sooner or later, every pastor has it happen. He's in the middle
of a sermon, all is going well, he's on top of his game, the
Lord is near, the people are listening well. And then, bam!  An
interruption. A disruption. (He will feel like it's a
"corruption." The trick, however, is not to turn it into a PRO-
duction. Okay, enough of that.)  Something happens in the
service the pastor was not prepared for. It throws him. For a
moment, he is stunned into silence.  What he says/does next and
how he does it could end up being far more important than
anything he was saying in the sermon.  The people sitting in
front of the pastor are of two minds: like him, they had their
train of thought disrupted by whatever happened, and they are
watching to see how he handles things.  These interruptions--
surprises, disruptions, snafus, foulups--are generally of two
types: 1) those involving matters within the congregation, and
2) those which pertain primarily to the preacher himself.  The
pastoral team can make preparations for d