Sound ministry… I am not talking about ministry based on sound biblical principles, though I certainly think this is important. I am talking about the ministry that occurs through your church’s sound technicians. If you send recordings to people who are homebound, offer them at a nominal cost to people who missed the service, or put them online for download, you have a sound ministry. Your sound tech team also makes sure that what your congregation hears during your services is clear and inviting. Sometimes this team can make a difference in the message being intelligible at all to a member who might not otherwise be able to hear well; and that person may just be the person most in need of an encouraging word at any given moment.
Why am I writing about this? I have experienced sound ministry from three perspectives. I wrote last night about the experience of being the person who needs access to the words of songs that the congregation is singing. It is not always possible for me to have music in braille. In a church where I am a guest, I must trust that I will be able to hear the voices of people around me and understand the lyrics. When I cannot sing along, at least I can worship by listening and agreeing in spirit with what is being sung. This allows me to maintain a worshipful heart and move into the next phase of the service along with the community, ready to participate where I can. When sound is distorted or unbalanced, it is difficult to do this. For some people, distorted or unbalanced sound can even be painful and can distract badly from the act of worship.
I am also a vocalist and speaker. I am personally familiar with the challenges that face people who lead in worship: the tendency to oversing due to inability to hear oneself through monitors, thus straining the voice; struggling to speak loudly enough to be heard when the voice has been strained and micing is difficult; the challenge of achieving an appropriate balance with a band and maintaining clarity of lyrics, especially when singing with an orchestra.
Recently, I decided that it would be beneficial for me to gain some experience running sound in the church setting. During my teen years, when I first showed interest in songwriting and wanted to recording a piece with multiple vocals, my church sound technician acquainted me with the sound board; and my fascination with sound equipment was born. I have been producing audio at home since the mid-1980s, first with four-track recorder and later with a computer running Cakewalk Sonar Producer. In my early years of undergraduate school, I took courses in music production at Anderson University; but following my transfer to a college in Texas, my work with sound equipment was limited to what I used in my home studio. In spite of this, my interest in production and the workings of sound remained; and I made numerous observations wherever I went about good qualities in systems and what I might do differently.
Because I blend these three perspectives, my experience in the sound booth will become rather interesting. I expect it will have some strengths; and I also expect that some of those strengths may be weaknesses in some settings. When I work sound, I think from all three perspectives; and I have to be aware of what perspective I am using at a given time. I may find that in time I need to adopt other perspectives as well…
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