This is about leading worship – the “lost sheep” in the title refers to the one out of several or many things that we need in leading worship. How often we neglect, forget, or re-prioritise something and that was the item that, because we didn’t give it (enough) attention, it caused frition or issue in the worship liturgy?
We kept meaning to replace an audio cable, or tighten up a knob or an equipment, to the point that the equipment could not perform as expected, and thus affected our own worship and in turn, that of in the music team and the congregation.
So many times the battery in the guitar or the microphone set had run down that during the service, we had to replace it. Or worse still, not to use that equipment as there was no replacement battery to be found!
A church we visited some months back, the sound system initially did not work – I noticed this was because a set of controls were down, not sending audio to the speakers. On a return visit, again the sound system did not work, despite now they had some new equipment, numerous sets of instructions, and all necessary controls are labelled for all eventualities. While it was brought back online, two of the microphones did not work reliably. No doubt the congregation had had put it a lot of effort on the sound system and people came early to set it up. The “lost sheep” in this case appears to be the microphones, their quality requiring some “tender loving care” attention.
At another church, we had thought that leaving the lap microphone on, while having the “ambience” microphone on, would be a good idea. It was, in that, those who were worshipping online could hear the on-site congregation as via the ambience mic. However, when anyone uses the lapel microphones, the online congregation gets a slight echo, as they also hear the inpur from the ambience mic. The “lost sheep” here is the reminder not to be lazy in maintaining only one mic on at any one time. The slight echo is not a major issue except when it continues for minutes.
Another “lost sheep” is the care of the church organ in one church – it had rarely been used during the pandemic. This Sunday, the organ was to be used. The visiting organist played for some half an hour. The volume was increased two minutes prior to the commencement of service – there was a high-pitch sound that was continuing. I was convinced it was from the organ; I checked and indeed it was. Credit to the organist who tried various ways to deal with it, and successfully did so in the last hymn! The organ had needed regular checking that the church had not done due to the pandemic. It was not any particular thing that needed fixing in the organ, and it was under certain control of the pedal that the “dead key” was heard.