Light of the world

A former colleague texted me to ask what trainee vicars get up to in the holidays. I referred him to this blog, only for him to reply that I haven't written anything for 3 weeks. Whoops!

So, I'm still waiting for news from the bishop, but lots has happened since then. Let me tell you in several easy chunks, starting with my reason for being back in the south three weeks ago.

A few years ago, my children were in the local dancing school, First Position School of Dance (Google it if you live in Bournemouth!), which was about to do its first ever stage production. They were looking for somebody to do the stage lighting, which was a dormant hobby of mine, so I was volunteered for it. I must have done a good job, as I've done each major show since! And I must have done well this time as I'm now having to ponder my availability another two years hence.

As I'm on university terms my summer holiday this year is over three months long, and things like this serve several purposes:

1. Keeps me off the streets
2. Gets the family back 'home' to see old friends
3. It's a cheap holiday. On top of my grant from Salisbury I receive a rather generous 'long vacation' allowance of just over £300, which presumably is meant to cover the cost of a family holiday - I'll probably spend that in petrol costs this summer!

So I spent most of the week in a darkened theatre programming a computerised lighting desk, taking part in over-running Technical and Dress Rehearsals, and four performances, along the way providing a Wogan-style commentary to the crew on the backstage headsets. By the final performance all the lights were perfect!

Along the way I renewed old friendships, and had an amazing number of conversations with these people, who when I last worked with them had no idea of the turn my life was about to take. As one old gentleman said "you don't meet many people in your line of work these days" (by which he meant people who were in training for the Ministry). People are fascinated by what I'm doing, and joked about wanting to come to my church if services were going to be technologically anything like what I'd just accomplished.

Well I can't promise that, as not many churches have the budget to have amazing lighting (but if I found one that did, I'd use it to help focus attention on proceedings, appropriately without distracting from the main purpose of worship). But many places do have more technology than you realise. Before I left St Mary's Ferndown we had upgraded the vision system from a 'simple' projector based song-words set-up to a multi-monitor, multi-location camera based set-up, allowing better sight of what was happening at the front/back/sides - wherever the action was taking place, enhancing the worship experience for all. But again, if technology is overused in worship it becomes distracting, so the key is understanding what the limits are - what your congregation can cope with - and this will vary depending on what the service is!

When I know where I'll end up I'll maybe have further chances in the technology department. Maybe I'll be somewhere where a radio microphone is cutting-edge.....