Don’t Forget to Worship: The Importance of Finding a Worship Place Outside the Booth

2012 was a bit of a whirl-wind year for me.  The best part was finally finding time for worshiping with the church body.  A year ago, I was the volunteer tech director at the church where I’d been a long-time member.  Six-months ago, I was following God’s call to provide temporary help with audio at a church well away from my hometown.  Two months ago, I met with the production direction of the church where I’ll soon be behind the mixer.

What you might notice in the above paragraph is how much time I was actively working in audio production.  It wasn’t until God released me from working that temporary audio assistance that I finally had a break to worship.  Oh, I had a weekend off here or there but WOW, it seemed like my year was spent supporting worship, not worshiping.

The Big Mistake

It was two months ago that I realized HOW EASY IT WAS to forget about my own church worship time.  Let’s be honest, you are behind the mixer and taking in the worship band and the pastor’s sermon but you can’t allow yourself to focus ONLY on those elements because your job doesn’t allow for it.  The big mistake is thinking worship from within the sound booth is the same as worship within the church seats.  You are to worship Him throughout the week, on a personal level, but you should be involved in corporate worship as well.

You can’t worship 100% when you are behind the mixer and I’m turning to the simple words of Warren Wiersbe to explain;

Worship is the believer’s response of all that they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does. Warren Wiersbe

Your Job

Consider your job as a form of orchestration.  You are orchestrating what people hear throughout the service.  But this means you must always have some focus on the events going on on-stage, on-deck, and behind the scenes.  Worshiping 100% from the booth will lead to missed mic cues, audio mistakes, and in breaking the mood of the service when all eyes turn and look at you. Ugh.

Finding Time

Consider the importance of being part of corporate worship.  Of singing from the seats. Of praying totally focused on God and communicating with Him. Of taking communion with the body regardless of whether or not you get communion when you are in the booth.  Let’s get you in a place where you can be part of corporate worship.  Consider these two times/places for your own corporate worship when you aren’t behind the mixer:

• Mid-week service / other service.  Depending on your church scheduling, you might not be working all of the church services.  Take that as an opportunity to attend a separate service and give yourself over to God.
• Another church. Yes, I said it.  Imagine walking into a church where you can fully focus on worship and be a part of the congregation without worrying your name will be called to help with audio or some technical problem.  If you are on-call at EVERY church service at your home church, consider hitting a mid-week service or a Saturday evening service where you can participate in a weekly worship experience.

Hey, Isn’t This a Techie Church Audio Web Site?

Church audio production isn’t like “secular” audio production.  Oh, 95% of it is the same, using the best practices, knowing the science of audio, and using proper mixing techniques, but it’s that 5% where there is a lot of difference.  One of those areas of difference is in how we spend our time and the sacrifices we make.  God called me into church audio production in a big way and in that calling is recognizing the difference between what I can do on each side of the sound booth wall.

The Take Away

Christmas productions ended a few weeks ago.  Late-night church services are over.  And you might be one of the techs who spent your time, not with your family, not being part of the congregation, not fully partaking in corporate worship.  It’s 2013.  It’s a new year.  It’s time to consider how much time you should be spending giving “mind, emotions, will, [and] body” over in worship.  He desires your worship. Make the time for it.

For insight on the Sabbath day and working in audio production, check out I Can’t Keep the Sabbath, I’m Too Busy Working It.