Thursday, March 12, 2009

SOUND GUYS AND STUFF CHRISTIANS LIKE

Okay, a guy who goes by the alias "Prodigal John" and runs a blog titled, "Stuff Christians Like" posted this today. A friend of mine forwarded it to me. It made me smile... Really smile...

Prodigal John's blog is basically a running list of the often weird stuff he thinks Christians like... This post is classic... It's about Sound Guys - like the guy who runs sound in your local church.

When I think of the sound guys in my life - especially the guys @ a2 - guys who selflessly serve in a God-honoring way and are some of the best people on the planet, PERIOD. I mean, the best people on the planet! I know that they've had their fair share of "the sound guy neck crane." I've done it and so have you...

Something goes wrong and heads turn, people stare, while the sound guys desperately struggles to fix the problem - that most of the time was just some weird something going wrong with the technology, and not something they actually did wrong...

I've always thought these guys would feel really good if the 99.9% of the time when things GO RIGHT we would turn around, give two BIG THUMBS UP, pat them on the back and say something like, "You're the man."

Well, maybe we all can dream...

With that said, here's Prodigal John's post on #507 of Stuff Christians Like, titled "The Sound Guy Neck Crane."

Enjoy.


#507. The Sound Guy Neck Crane.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Prodigal John

Microphones hate God. I can’t prove this scientifically, but I’m pretty sure it’s true. I think it’s because God doesn’t need them. When He speaks in the Bible, His voice is loud and carries naturally, or He uses angels and donkeys and burning bushes to amplify His message. So I imagine that microphones feel slighted and decided long ago to wage a very public hate campaign against the Alpha and Omega.

How else can you explain the shenanigans that occur on Sunday morning with the sound system? From microphones that work perfectly during sound check and then refuse to work during the service to that loud ear-bursting feedback that blossoms during the most inappropriate times, like prayer, sound systems are always punking church. And when they do, it’s so easy to pull out a “sound guy neck crane.”

The sound guy neck crane is the first thing we all do when the sound goes bananas in the middle of church. It’s a simple move, but I’ll walk you through the steps:

Step 1
Sound messes up.

Step 2
You quickly try to remember where the sound guy is stationed in the sanctuary.

Step 3
You crane your neck to his position and stare at him with eyes that say, “Do you not hear this? That microphone is on fire! Why do you want church to suck? Do you hate Jesus? That’s it, isn’t it? You hate Jesus. You sweaty Philistine.”

Step 4
Sound is restored. You turn back around and silently thank yourself for contributing to the rectification of the problem by pointing it out with your sound guy neck crane.

I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. The only problem is that at the megachurch I attend, a staff of 29 people runs the sound on a Sunday morning, so my head has to bounce around like I’m watching a tennis match if I want to bust out a sound guy neck crane. “I see you in the balcony. You down at the sound booth. You up on the corner of the stage, I’m seeing you too, and I’m not happy.” Bounce, bounce, bounce, crane, crane, crane.

That’s part of the reason I’m going to retire my sound guy neck crane. It’s just too much work at my church. It’s also kind of a jerk thing to do. And by “kind of” I mean “really,” and by “jerk” I mean “words I can’t type without crazy *&# symbols.” From now on, when the sound messes up, I’m going to just side hug the person next to me and whisper politely, “Microphones hate God.” It will be awkward the first 2, 3, or 400 times, but people usually like side hugs, and it will put the blame where it belongs: on God-hatin’ sound equipment.

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