Joel Stone
Weekly Report #8
3-29-07

Observing the sound technician.

For my practicum, I observed the operation of the audio for the church service.

This is an area that I have been exposed to multiple times, so this is more of my thinking through the idea of the sound tech’s job. At my church back home, I used to be involved in working the sound. This was, at times, a difficult job. You would have to be there early in the morning, make sure everything was setup and secure, if there were multiple people or instruments involved in the worship service, you had to be prepared to have the sound equipment perfect for them.

It is very difficult for a sound tech to be engaged in what is taking place in the service. If you are able to engage at all, you still must be aware of the technical side just in case something must be changed or fixed. This can be distracting. I think that this can turn into a problem. It is important to allow a rotation or an alternate to be involved to offer the sound tech time to meet with and engage in the worship.

This is a good way to serve in the church, and it is good to see what goes into the service on all sides, but there needs to be a system in place that allows the church body to commune with each other and with God.

Joel Stone
Weekly Report #7
3-23-07
Writing a Prayer.This week I wrote a prayer for this Sunday’s evening service. This prayer is a pastoral prayer that I worked on writing with Pastor Judy.

Like she had suggested, I spent some time in prayer for my preparation, also she had suggested to read through the Lord’s prayer several times before I wrote my own, so I did that as well.
In writing this prayer, I was able to see some of my own weaknesses when if came to writing in general. As this was a pastoral prayer, I was able to hear some of Pastor Judy’s idea when it came to writing these prayers. One of her thought was to make every pronoun plural, instead of “I”, us “we”. As we had talked about in class, this was good, but it showed some practicality in how she presented it as in every aspect of this prayer was communal and I have nothing to do with it.

This was a humbling experience and I look forward to praying this prayer on Sunday.

Joel Stone
Weekly Report #6
2-1-07
Reading Scripture during the morning service.

This week I had the opportunity to read scripture for the morning service in the C2 venue for College Wesleyan.

I thought that this going to be very easy to do, but once the time came; I found that I was actually somewhat nervous. It was on a whim that I did it last Sunday, so I rather threw myself into it and only had gotten to read it over one time.

I like the idea reading scripture in front of people but I found that the nervousness got to me once in front of a group of people. I am used to be in the back, not at the front of the stage, behind the drums, but I need more up front exposure. I did like being put into a position of weakness and being uncomfortable. It was stretching and difficult but I can definitely see the benefit in it. This is a great honor being able to share God’s holy word in a worship service setting.

I look forward to reading scripture more often.