Tonight I ran the PowerPoint for the Musical Worship at camp.

We have a slideshow with all the words to the worship songs set up on a computer, churches often need a person (or trained monkey) to accomplish the very menial task of pressing “next” whenever the singer finishes singing the words on the current page.

It’s been years since I’ve done that, Since High School I think. And the experience was actually pretty awesome.

Early in my christian life, when I was a 12 year old in student leadership, PowerPoint was my thing! I ran the lights and the sound and the PowerPoint for services all the time, multiple times a week. But late in high school for some reason the ministry I was involved in got kinda crowded with tech people. And everybody wanted to do the trained monkey job, as if there was some kind of prestige to it, so I moved on and started doing announcements.

Then I did Games.

Then Small Groups, Bible Studies, Sermons, Camps, and Secular Universities.

But tonight they needed me back in the sound booth pressing the next button.

I actually really engage with worship that way. I’m not normally crazy about music, I’m a terrible singer, and I have trouble engaging with what always feels like an excessive amount of time in church spent singing. But from the booth it doesn’t feel that way to me, It feels like I’m more engaged, like I’m contributing something to the sacrifice we’re offering together.

Actually there’s a sense, when you get the slides flowing with the music at just the right moment when the idea shifts from the chorus to the bridge, and you get into the flow of the song, and you almost feel like you’re a part of the band and…. Okay I’m a nerd. Maybe not.