#66-Church Sound Men

When one goes to read I Corinthians 12 and Paul's commentary on the importance of the entire body of Christ and how no part of the body is more important than another part (Does the eye say that it has no need for a toe?), and how we need to appreciate every single person who is apart of the body, one's mind goes straight to the under-appreciated workers within the church...the custodian, the kitchen attendant, the snow shoveler, etc...

And then one ponders the sound guys and their ministry...They are an entirely different genre... A genre of people that no church body could be without, but certainly a genre that does not scream under-appreciated in comparison to the other workers mentioned above...

Why? Because the church sound guys make their presence known...And they, nor their equipment will be messed with...

I seriously feel like I could write an entire book about the Sound Ministry within churches...simply because it of how fascinating the world of the sound man is complete with politics and secret bickering between the sound men and the musicians

It's like they failed at musicianship, so they took the job in church that can dictate whether or not the real musicians will sound good...

I am convinced that sound room guys sit behind their sound board convinced that the whole success of the church rides on their magical fingertips and eardrums....

They tell you their job is extremely difficult and that only specialized people with a "trained ear" can run the sound. And throughout the worship services of church they twist and mangle and elevate different levers and switches behind their protected sanctuary of sound equipment as if they were on some top secret code mission, but yet 95% of the people in the congregation can't tell the difference as the sound is being rearranged...

And if one tries to hang out or around in the sound room (or section), they are immediately told to go to their parents and tell them you're in trouble (even if it's an adult they are speaking to)....Basically the sound room guys make you really believe that the location of Osama's whereabouts are secretly being kept and researched within the sound room itself...

I am not positive, but speculation is that 60-75% of all church budgets goes to the sound ministry and getting new gadgets and sound equipment and stuff that matters very minimally to the untrained ear...and they request for such funds in the name of necessity....

Except last year I joined the sound ministry at my church...(which is no longer like most sound rooms in terms of the fact that we don't take ourselves too seriously) and managed to handle the sound solely by looking at the sound levels on a lighted meter that accompanies the sound board and making adjustments accordingly. I didn't get any complaints and it was scarily easy, And i don't know a thing about music or sound boards...It was all a big joke....

Which leads to the conclusion:

The sound guys want to hide their ministerial roles and projects and equipment magazines in a cloud of privacy and secrecy so you can think what they do is more important than it really is. They stand in the back of the church behind a giant board of thousands of switches (most of which will never be used), where their presence is mostly unseen, but their influence is heard through the speakers...

They are the Wizard of Oz.