Have you ever seen (or maybe performed) “the sound guy neck crane”? You know -- when the sound goes wacko in a church service and everyone starts turning around to look at the person running the sound? Poor guy. Working in technology can be a thankless job.
These past few days I’ve been watching the coverage of Synod, both the live streaming and the archives. I was particularly interested in watching my brother lead the devotions on Saturday morning. I didn’t catch it live but was able to watch it in the archives. After I finished watching it, I felt very grateful that I could see it....and thus this blog entry.
I got that term “sound guy neck crane” from Jon Acuff’s “Stuff Christians Like.” When I read Mr. Acuff’s blog entry it cracked me up:
The sound messes up...You crane your neck to [the sound guy’s] position and stare at him with eyes that say, “Do you not hear this? That microphone is on fire! Why do you want church to suck? Do you hate Jesus? That’s it, isn’t it? You hate Jesus. You sweaty Philistine.”
I myself am on our church’s sound and Power Point teams, and I’ve definitely experienced that sound guy neck crane -- both giving and receiving. It is true, isn’t it, that most of the time we don’t even think about the people running the technology until something goes wrong?
So here’s my thanks -- thank you to those who have faithfully streamed the Synod sessions and posted the archives. I encourage all of you, dear readers, to take a minute to thank your church’s technicians next Sunday -- whether the service goes without a hitch or has some problems. They try hard to do their work so well that no one notices. Go ahead and notice...and say, “Thanks!”
