Worship Techies

I sit here in the sound booth at my church, passing time until the next service (44 minutes and counting), and I recall an event that happened about 4 months ago here.

We had a "Ministry Fair" at the church - an opportunity to show everyone what ministries were available and give them a chance to volunteer if they so desired. It was a good idea, and the Dave that runs the video got together with me, the Dave that runs the sound booth to put together our booth to advertise the "Worship Tech Ministry."

I created a Power Point presentation to advertise it, he set up his video camera with a TV to show people themselves as they walked by. These were meant to be attention-getters, things to invite people over so that we could talk to them about what we do. We were there for a solid hour and a half... and one person came over to ask about how to serve. I passed the time mostly by nibbiling at the pineapple-upside-down cake the Mom's Ministry had baked.

I was trying to figure out later what happened - why no one had come over. I mean, we run sound, computers and video. We get to work hand-in-hand with the worship team and the pastors to make sure they look and sound as good as we can make it. We offer valuable insight when dramas and other special events are being put together. We're cool, right? And then I realized the truth: I am, in many respects, the leader of the church A/V Club.

Perhaps the truth did not hit me sooner because I had never known of such a club when I was in school. But that description is the most fitting I can come up with. I embody the lack of social skills and mastery of arcane knowledge that comes with the turf. I am more comfortable trying to simultaneously run the house lighting, cue the spotlights and the sound board while watching the stage to make sure everything is going as planned than I am trying to talk to an attractive and available woman (beautiful married women or those that are spoken for or otherwise off-limits I can, of course, speak to with ease).

I am the reason mankind will never split into two seperate evolutionary branches as in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine's Eloi and Morlocks. It is my experience that for the most part a man's command of technical knowledge and his ability to communicate with and woo women are inversely proportional, therefore as technical knowledge increases, the chance that one's genetic information will be passed along to another generation decreases proportionally.