"WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WORNG?”
by Sandy Hoffman
Yesterday, it happened. Just about anything that could go wrong during worship did go wrong. The day started out predictably enough. That incredibly blue Santa Fe sky greeted me as I walked out the front door to head for the church. The engine of my fine old Ford fired right up, and soon the radio was blaring Dick Clark; espousing the glory of the Oldies Top 40. (I switched to the Black Gospel station as soon as possible.)
THEN WHAT WENT WRONG? As always, we conducted our weekly worship team tech rehearsal on Thursday afternoon. That’s the point in the week where my assistant and I go through the worship checklist. From batteries to lyric projection, lighting and stage set up, we try to make sure everything is just right before the team shows up for Thursday evening rehearsal. After insuring that charts were accurate and available for each worship song in the set, we welcomed the team members as they showed up for a time of “P and P” (prayer and polish). The rehearsal proceeded without a glitch, which further compounded our Sunday morning dismay; arriving to discover that “worship gremlins” had been hard at work over the weekend. It began during the very first song of the first service. Inexplicably, a middle aged light bulb in one of our three video projectors croaked. If you’re like most worship leaders and team members, one of your high priority goals is to minimize this type of distraction during worship. The instantaneous blackness of the screen, only moments before lit up with the morning’s first glowing words of praise, jerked the attention of the worshipers from the eternally Divine into the mundane moment. Sometimes it only takes one small stone to start an avalanche, and so the tumbling began! Soon after, on the heels of the video bulb debacle, came the wireless mic muting mishap. So much damage can be caused by one stray index finger on a mute button. That’s all it took to accidentally render two perfectly new double A batteries useless. This was distraction number two, and it wasn’t diagnosed until the end of the first service. When our bass player arrived for service number two, he was greeted by a total re-tweaking of all the settings on his stage amp. Who changed it? Who knows? The gremlins, we suppose, but suffice it to say that he spent the rest of the morning trying to arrive back at that “sweet spot” he had so carefully dialed in at rehearsal just three days before. “D- number-three” was in full swing. It was then that the gremlins launched their most insidious attack. As I mentioned, it is our habit to check and replace batteries every Thursday for the following Sunday. This time, what we thought was a brand new 9 volt battery placed in the internal pre amp of my Taylor T5, was actually a used one; lying in wait to disrupt worship with a final choke and wheeze of DC output. This turned my beautifully clear signal into a dynamically distorted distraction of major proportions. “OK,” I thought, “it’s time for the people ‘out there’ to meet and greet one another. I’ll just discreetly change the battery while they’re not looking.” I signaled the sound tech to mute my guitar channel, and in seconds I had a brand new 9 volt battery in the T5. “Finally,” I thought, “after a morning of multiple distractions, we’re back on track, ready to lead the people into the throne room of God!” Not so fast! Yet one more distracting hurdle remained, and this was a really good one. No sooner did we begin the next praise song, than we noticed a hideous crackle and spit coming from my guitar channel. Arrggghh! The battery was fine now, but sometime during that short welcome break, the gremlins had made their final move. The XLR cable between guitar direct box and house snake had chosen that very moment to cease making a solid connection. For the next twenty minutes or so there were milliseconds at a time of pure clarity, interspersed with the most ear drum wrenching electronic outbursts. My worship leader focus was gone. Demoralized, I grimaced through the remainder of the set, then slunk off stage with my head hung low.
THE PATH OF PREVENTION We learned that day that not every worship distraction can be avoided. But in spite of any technical challenges we may face, we simply must rely upon the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the people to overcome unexpected distractions. I actually received one surprisingly wonderful praise report from someone who was deeply ministered to that morning; never even noticing any of the worship distractions. There’s a wonderful old saying, “You do your best, and God will do the rest.” There’s probably no more appropriate context for that than in our worship times, and yet, as responsible lead worshipers, there are still steps we should take on the path of prevention. Here are a few suggestions. They may not eliminate all of your technical challenges, but if applied, they will send your gremlins a clear message that you are fighting back. 1) Perform regular replacement. Changing batteries, strings, bulbs and anything else that has a short, unpredictable life span will help to avoid lots of embarrassment. Make, and stick to a regular, consistent schedule of replacement. 2) Keep consistent records. Keeping a written log of your amp, instrument and sound reinforcement settings will make it easy to reset them to your favorite sweet spots. Also, remember to keep an eye on the number of hours of use on gear which has it’s own internal clock. Too many hours can be a warning sign of impending distraction. Stay vigilant. 3) Have supplies on hand. Always have on hand fresh batteries and replacement cables of all kinds, bulbs, strings, picks, sticks and anything else you can think of. You never know when you may need to make a quick switch right in the middle of worship. 4) Don’t forget to pray! It’s not weird to pray for your instruments, amps, sound system, computers, lights, projectors and anything else that exists to assist your team in offering the ultimate glory to God. Finally, “fluidity” is the key! I’ve heard it said, “Be fluid, because flexible is too ridged.” These profound words of wisdom, applied in worship and mixed with faith, will enable us to deal with anything that could possibly go worng. I mean wrong.
Fixin’ it,
Sandy
