Pastor's Blog: The Sound of Worship
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I’ve always been impressed by the fascination every generation seems to have for the Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, The Sound of Music. Even if they can’t carry a tune in a bucket, they understand that celebrating how “the hills are alive with the sound of music” is a good and even necessary thing to do.
For the church I would extend the celebration to include everything that supports worship. Because worship is the “front door” for most folk today who feel led to check out a church, it behooves a congregation to be at its best in worship so that at the same time we honor God we connect attendees to His promised presence.
How then do we craft such an experience that both honors God and connects others to His presence? Truthfully, it requires everyone’s participation. Worship has often been described as “the work of God’s people.” I like that definition. It suggests how leaders, attendees, and support staff pool their talents together to offer something up to God, which in turn comes back down to the gathered congregation as grace in all its glory.
We do a commendable job of that most important work here at MBBC. But it takes constant attention and support. Consider, for example, the challenge we faced during those first months of COVID when everything went virtual, including gathered worship. What you didn’t see and therefore probably didn’t notice was the number of folk “behind the scenes” who were running sound and managing the livestream feed. Even now that we’re back to gathered worship, we still rely heavily on our virtual broadcast so that leaning on volunteers is more important than ever.
So, I am inviting you to pray how you can help this church stay alive with the “sound of worship.” If you would be able to help us by working the sound board, please see Kely Hatley. Though one person can manage both audio feeds, the in-house and the livestream, having two persons makes the experience better. If you can help with the livestream, please see Tim Sanderlin. Tim has taken on this task and has begun enlisting volunteers, many of whom have already begun their service to our church. But as you can imagine, with two livestreams each Sunday, traditional and contemporary, we can never have enough volunteers. Beyond that, if you’d like to participate with projection needs for contemporary worship, see Joel Burks. If you’d like to have your child read Scripture during the service, see Sharon Howard. If you’d like to help us welcome people warmly each Sunday, see Wayne Splawn.
I think you get the picture, or better I should say, I think you hear the call. What a tragedy it would be if our worship was silenced in some way by a lack of support. Please help us to keep worship the life-giving experience we want it to be and God deserves it to be. Then, our song will extend beyond these walls and even the surrounding hills. Then, it will go forth from this sacred place to the very ends of the earth.
“Sing to the LORD, for He has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world” (Isaiah 12:5).