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Brian and Cindy
Waple, Sean and Brendan |
Re-Inventing Our
Worship
By
Brian Waple
No, we’re not going to start singing
Gregorian chant during the worship service (although there is some
wonderful spirituality found in Gregorian chant…OK, another article).
I wanted to talk a little about what’s happening with our worship
space, as well as some of the updates we’ll be making to the
technology.
First the worship space…as it was,
because the overall stage space had several levels, it naturally broke
the stage up into several areas. None of these areas was really large
enough to accommodate the entire worship team, and a lot of valuable
space was lost. When the decision was made to redo the stage, the
Elders smartly decided to build a single level stage. So, under the
capable leadership of Bob Hedge, the old stage was ripped out and a
new, one level stage was built. A couple of advantages to this: the
worship team is all on the same level, and we have the space to spread
the team out, as well as more space for other types of presentations.
Also, the decision was made to use reinforced plywood sheeting on the
floor. This makes the stage area much more solid (hats off to Jim
Batcheller).
In addition, the team installed
power all along the back wall. This will cut down on the need for
power strips and extension cords, and allow us to position sound
system gear and instruments where we need them on the stage.
Also, we have hidden almost all of
the wiring (personal peeve!) Most of the wiring will now be under the
stage. Kudos to Steve Weller and Chris Pace for engineering that.
Finally, speaking of wiring, Steve
and Ralph are building several sub-snakes (not the slithering kind),
which all of the instrument and microphone cords plug in to. These
will be located at various points along the stage, rather than
everything going to the one large snake under the piano. The overall
advantage is the stage will be much less cluttered.
Now, to the technology upgrades. Our
current sound mixer has reached a point where it is becoming too
expensive to repair. A request was made to the Elder Board, and they
gave us funding for the purchase of a new sound mixer. This past
Saturday Steve Weller, Ralph Hirschfelder, Chris Pace and I attended a
demonstration of a new, 16-channel, digital mixer, which we’ll be
buying in the next two weeks. What this means primarily is that we
will have much more capability and flexibility when planning and
running our sound. We’ve decided to wait to install the new mixer
until after all the construction is complete (this will keep the dust
out of the system). There will be a bit of a learning curve with a
digital mixer; but, as part of the purchase, the mixer manufacturer
will be providing on-site training to get us up and running. We expect
to be using the new system by the middle of August (by the way, now
would be a great time for anyone interested in running sound to
contact Ralph).
So, there you have it…a new stage, a
new sound architecture, a new mixer…all for the glory of God as we
offer our sacrifice of praise to Him. I want to thank you for your
patience as we are going through this “re-invention”, and I pray that
you will be pleased with the outcome.
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