Big Speakers and Dead Flowers

It was one of those days today. Got very little done, but had a good time doing it.

We welcomed Mike Pilavachi as a guest speaker for a special lecture to the entire Federation this afternoon, as well as preacher at Federation Worship, which meant that we spent all afternoon setting up the sound equipment and soundchecking with the band. In turn this meant that the things I normally spend all Tuesday doing (preparation for lectures for the rest of the week) got compressed or ignored in a small 2 hour slot in the morning.

Mike is somewhat of a celebrity amongst those who have worked with youth - he's the founder of the Soul Survivor annual festivals, amongst other achievements - so many people were looking forward to hearing him speak. Knowing that I was going to be the sound engineer today meant that there was a fair chance I'd be meeting him. However, I didn't expect to go totally incoherent within 30 seconds of meeting him.

The church doorbell rings (yes, they have doorbells!). I answer it. There, like a drowned rat in the pouring rain is a dripping wet Greek bloke. I let him in, introduce myself, he asks me which year I'm in, and I go incoherent trying to explain that I'm a second and final year! I feel like Jar Jar Binks (see illustration). Hardly a great first impression. However, later conversation is a greater improvement. In his lecture Mike spoke of his regret that at Soul Survivor 2009 he encouraged a Big Top full of young people to turn to Jesus, but didn't explain the cost of being a disciple. Afterwards in a quiet corner I catch him and we discuss the effect that obedience to God's call has on not only my own life, but also that of my children who will shortly have to move for the second time in two years, and make friends all over again.

It's interesting the effect that a 'celebrity' speaker has on Fed Worship. We've never had to put extra chairs out before.

Afterwards, clearing up, I demonstrate why churches shouldn't have flowers out in Lent, as I drop a rather heavy speaker (of the audio variety) on top of a lovely arrangement of daffodils and tulips. The speaker won.

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.....

Hallelujah!

Eddie Izzard said "There's something phenomenally dreary about Christians singing....the Church of England is the only group of people that could sing Hallelujah without feeling like it's a Hallelujah thing" - watch this (but not if you're easily offended - contains language that I won't be using from the pulpit)

There's a good chance that this year's Christmas Number One will be X-factor winner Alexandra singing 'Hallelujah', a song first written by Leonard Cohen. In fact there are three versions of the song now competing in the charts, the original Cohen version, the 'definitive' Buckley version, and the Alexandra version.

Is Cohen trying his best to send us to sleep? If this song was being sung as worship to you would you feel you were being worshipped? Alexandra certainly cannot be accused of a lack of passion in this performance.

When you next 'stand before the Lord of song with nothing upon your tongue but Hallelujah' will it be in the style of Cohen or Alexandra? How much sincere passion will you put into your praise?


At this point of course the more observant amongst you will have noticed that this song isn't really that Christmassy, neither is it an act of worship, it being an express tour through some interesting Old Testament stories, starting with the musical King David watching Bathsheba's rooftop bath (if that sparks your interest in the OT, go to 2 Samuel Chapter 12 for more).

But I hope you get my point.