Techie is back, techie is good!

Those reading this blog from St Mary's Ferndown will know that I only seemed to be happy with wires in my hands, a situation which has been alien to me for the past two or three months, as I had a short period of role-refugeeism.

I'm happy to report that the position has now been restored to normality - I'm now part of the highly trained Ridley Hall audio-visual team, and the training was put to the test twice on Thursday.

Morning Prayer was being led by my study-buddy Phil, and included some projected words and images. I Can Do Visual. Easy. Except when it's the first time you've tried to project from your new laptop and it's Windows Vista and you're not entirely familiar with the projector. So we had a full chapel and 30 seconds to go before the system was up and running with no chance for a dry run. Lots of arrow prayers during that service. "Please God, let it be this key that I press to get the next slide and please let there be some words on the next slide. I'll do anything for you, just let it be the right slide next, please, please, please". And it worked.

College Communion was a different challenge - this being the weekly service where the whole college community comes together. I Didn't Really Do Audio Until Yesterday When I Had A Crash Course! The rota'd guy was unavoidably detained elsewhere, so between me and another novice we had to balance the sound mix for the music group, and not deafen or otherwise distract 100-odd people from the solemnity of the service. Now I know what most of the buttons on a sound desk do, in isolation, but there's always been somebody else to do the difficult bit of mixing it all together to make it all sound crisp. Not on this occasion. It took me forever to work out that I hadn't switched the amplifier on! Things went uphill from there, until we had a major power failure 5 minutes before the service started. We were a picture of controlled but radiant panic for a few minutes, but the problem was solved, and everything went to plan. It even sounded good! And it was also, for me, the best service I've experienced yet at Ridley - excellent music, good teaching, an outstanding testimony, and only one cricket joke that fell flat.

Audio-Visual is all about seeing and hearing. I like the visual stuff, because I can usually see why something isn't working. That's why I do computers and lighting, and haven't really done sound before this week - when you can't hear sound coming through it's a lot harder to find where it's gone. In John 20, where Thomas' refuses to believe that Jesus was indeed risen from the dead he is finally convinced only when he can touch Jesus for real. Jesus response is "Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me".

So what is your response when you are faced with a God you can neither see nor hear?