Initial Conditions

Every three weeks it falls upon me to man the PowerPoint at church on Sunday evenings, displaying the words for the people to sing.

This is usually a simple task, but sometimes things go wrong. Usually, they are of the nature that I’m singing along happily to a song and get so engrossed in it that you forget to click the mouse and bring the next verse up. But there are far worse things.

When you come into church an hour before the service starts, the praise leader (hi David and or Claire if you happen to be reading!) will say hi and give me a list of songs that will be sung that night. I’ll find the right songs, and put them together into appropriate medleys so that you can switch from song to song seamlessly.

However, there are some horrors that will provoke that very worst of things to happen: the congregation turning round and looking at you, a sure sign that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Here they are:

WRONG SONG: this happens when the praise leader only tells you the first line of a song, and it is not unique. The congregation sings the first line fine then it descends into chaos. They turn round and see you frantically trying to find the right version. I did this on my first ever go and nearly felt like not coming back the next time. How was I to know there were two “I lift my hands”? This is avoided now, because I just ask the David or Claire what the right one is. Job done.

MAIN SCREEN TURN OFF: Sometimes, the remote we use to “mute” the picture decides not to work. So you’re sat at the back trying manically to press this button to turn the screen on and it doesn’t work. You run right under the projector to get an unimpeded run at turning it on. No joy. Meanwhile the band is playing while nobody else has any words to read off. You try one last time to turn it on and it works, halfway through the first verse. Thankfully we have an alternative to the remote now, so these days are gone.

ITUNES INSANITY: Before the service, we play some music over the speakers via iTunes so people can be completative. The guy on sound turns it down, and sometimes, I forget that it’s still playing. Which is why, when I start a DVD (usually provided by a visiting speaker) , you occasionally get a soundtrack of Delerious or Matt Redman accompanying it. Sometimes you can ignore it and pretend it’s just part of the DVD, but mostly you cannot, so everyone can see you, on the screen, sheepishly turning iTunes off.

VISITING SPEAKER: Will occasionally have a slide presentation, and often will not tell you directly when slides have to be changed. This causes confusion when they start referring to a street kid when there’s nothing on the screen but a picture of a Mosque.

But, despite all these problems, it mostly goes trouble-free, and I am pleased to be able to serve in this small, but very important way. Nobody stops to thank you, but to be honest, I wouldn’t want them to anyway.