My Gazpacho Soup Moment.

[gateslacker]

I have been wanting to take a more active role in my church for some time but since I have "let fear take the wheel and steer" with regard to any activities that even remotely involve performance in front of an audience, I have often wondered what to do. Wednesday night an opportunity presented itself. Our church has been newly renovated along with a new sanctuary. During the construction several new high tech features were incorporated. We actually have a sound booth, of all things! We also have this computer system that relays information such as song lyrics, bible verses, power point presentations, and announcements onto a projection screen at the front of the church and a flat panel screen at the back. There is this program (mediashout) whereby you create a schedule of items to show on the screen. You can even import video into this program. In any case, they needed someone to take over for the person who usually does it because he was going to take on a new role in church services. I decided to volunteer, seeing that I enjoy creating and/or playing around with audio visual stuff. Today was my first day on the job as a trainee. Everything was going very well and I got my butt out of bed earlier than usual to get there early. I had already adjusted the announcements and learned the rudimentary basics. When song lyrics are displayed for the congregation the order has already been determined. However, you have to be aware of the best time to transition to the next screen. Since I do have some sense of timing, I anticipated that very well. The first hymn went off without a hitch. At some point during the second hymn, I transitioned the screen as I normally would in the sequence it was listed only to discover that the lyrics on the screen didn't match what the song leader was singing! Ack, shouldn't they delete any lyrics they don't normally sing! As I scrambled to locate the correct lyrics, I noticed a peculiar thing. The boisterous singing had leveled off to a collection of distorted mumbles as folks tried to sing the lyrics on the screen and match the song leader at the same time. With all the distortion, I couldn't figure out what the lyrics even were! Who would have thought the congregation had acclimated itself so readily to the new tech? Did anyone actually open a hymnal anymore? It was then that I completely lost it, laughing, while crouched and hidden behind my pair of computer monitors (one shows the program, one shows what is relayed to the screen), as did most of the congregation. Even so, I eventually found the correct lyric and the song was not lost.

So much for not drawing attention to myself! ROFL!!

Flub ups certainly can make for good stories, can't they?

Okay...off to actually do some assignments for class as I should have been doing all along......

Comments

[de23.livejournal.com]

We use mediashout too, although I haven't ever run it (we were still using powerpoint last time I helped out with that). But if the lyrics were not it the right order, that was certainly not your fault!
Did anyone actually open a hymnal anymore?
We don't even have hymnals, so things are really interesting when there are tech problems or the power goes out or something.
I'm glad you found a place where you could be more involved. I know you'll only improve with practice!

[gateslacker.livejournal.com]

They use a combination of Power point and mediashout. It really is a cool program, I think.

I think there were some extra lyrics or something...

[dm-lunsford.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you found a place where you feel like you can serve. And yes, running the media tech plays into worship, so I think it's very important. ; )

There are still places that do use hymnals... but it's typically places like Fly, Tennessee, where we don't have a screen and projector. ; )

[gateslacker.livejournal.com]

There are still places that do use hymnals... but it's typically places like Fly, Tennessee, where we don't have a screen and projector. ; )

How quaint ;-) LOL. I do wonder whose idea it was for all the fancy gadgets. Perhaps they felt that they may as well go for the gusto! But, I am sure you remember when that church was a basement building.

[scarym1.livejournal.com]

Wow you certainly have a high tech service. : )
We still use hymn books.

Lately there has been alot of talk of financial difficulties and declining congregations, I consider ourselves lucky that we have a decent sound system.

[gateslacker.livejournal.com]

It isn't really as high tech as it sounds....but there are definitely some nifty gadgets.