Recently a friend of mine visited a fairly new Church to view an Easter Play.

When I ask him how everything went, he said, “OK, I guess but I could not hear what was being said”. As we continued to talk about the play and the work that had gone into putting it all together I couldn’t help but think about the problems this new church was having with their sound system.

A lot of churches are just like this one, in that, they will spend a lot of time and effort on making a presentation, stage casting, and decorations but they do not spend an equal amount of time on sound broadcasting or mic etiquette or even speaker placement. They just assume, somehow, all this will work itself out and the sound will get to where it is suppose to. And it usually does but often not with the quality that we desire to produce results.

Most Church Sound Techs refer to this as demons in the sound system.

What usually happens is the Persons in charge have not taken the time to explain how the sound systems work or maybe the Sound Person in charge may not know themselves how the system will respond under certain conditions. Either way it always leads to a disaster in the end which can be prevented with a little training.

It has been said that the best Sound Tech is one that goes completely un-noticed throughout the entire Church Service. No clicks, no rumbles, no squeals, or whistles, just good clear understandable music and vocals.

You don’t even know he is there, just doing his job.

There is nothing more annoying than to know our Pastor has worked all week on a message for the Sunday Morning crowd and just as he is giving the climax to his message the sound system gets “unsaved”. You’ve been there too! Just as he is bringing out his main point the system starts to squeal like the demons that ran into the herd of swine in Matthew 8:28-32. Of course, unlike that example in Matthew 8, the message of the hour is now lost along with the whole weeks work by the Pastor. Not counting the winning of the soul that may have be saved if the spirit of God had not been interrupted by the “unsaved sound system”.

So what is the answer?

First- Do some training of the Sound Personnel. Sound Re-enforcement is a ministry under the Ministry of Helps in 1 Corinthians 12:28. We must take it as seriously as the preaching of the word itself.

Second- Work with the singers and special speakers (Pastors if necessary) on Mic handling and speaker mic relationships. A mic pointed toward or coming to close to a stage monitor can cause an unwanted signal resulting in a squeal from feed back. Everyone involved with the presentations must be warned about the effects of open microphones, PA speaker placements, sound angles and such like.

Thirdly but not at all finally- Take some time to learn your building. One size does not fit all when it comes to sound equipment. Hire or at least consult a sound technician engineer or experienced sound personnel to go over EQ’s, Standing waves and Room Responses before purchasing Good Sound Equipment.

In most cases the local Music Store does not offer this service but you can find help on-line or by talking to those who have been through this phase of church growth. It is well worth your time to get it right the first time out.

A note to the wise: Most local music stores will want to sell you what they have in stock rather than helping you find what you need. Stay away from the ones that do not offer sound re-enforcement help for your specific needs. Run real fast away from the guy that tells you, “I used a system like this in this other church and it worked real good”. You will not get the help you need from this type of store and you will probably over pay the guy for bad free advice. Ending with purchasing something you do not need and failing to buy what you do need.

The Bible tells us to seek wisdom. We need to use this advice when Saving the Church Sound System.

Fonda Henson