When I was a sound technician, I was blessed with a worship leader who provided worship-service outlines weeks in advance. I used to kid him that the Spirit moved in him two weeks before it hit the congregation. One lesson I learned from him is that someone who is well prepared is able to respond much better to last-minute complications than someone who wings it. I have served as a consultant to churches that supposedly had sound system problems, only to discover that the real problem was poor preparation. By 9 a.m. the sound system is set up, and a CD is playing.
Musicians begin arriving for a last-minute rehearsal.
The service starts seven minutes late. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that there has been no time for sound checks and input testing. The service proceeds, accompanied by hums, cracks, pops, and a lousy sound mix. Ninety minutes later, the sound crew is exhausted, the musicians disgusted, and the pastor fed up. He decides to call in a sound expert.