Stage Hand

I had the pleasure of being the sound man for the premiere of Copellia at Wesleyan. You probably did not know I had the skill or training. I could go on and on about the sound board, dbs, mhz, lines and other technical things, but Steve Simmons would quickly call me out. He knows I know nothing. All I did was insert a CD into a CD player and push play. I was in the sound booth and it was a high class CD player. The group did excerpts from the ballet for the Wesleyan student body. First group 8a, second group 9a, third group 9:45a.....

Then came the hard part. For the third group they also did excerpts from the upcoming recital. I had to switch CDs and skip songs. I was a bit nervous, not wanting to mess up and put on the wrong song or miss the cue. Then this: the director of the ballet told me to put on a headset. She would communicate with me from behind stage and tell be exactly what to do and when to do it. Whew! That was comforting. And she did. By the time we got half way through, I was comfortable and I was anticipating what she was going to say, "CD #3 now, song #5." It was fun.

So as I drove away I thought, I need direction. I need coaching. Especially if I am going to grow in new areas. The Word of God is helpful here as are those further down the road. If you want to learn to evangelize, go to the Word of God and to a Randy Pope seminar. Want to grow in the area of service? The Community Outreach team has seminars. How about prayer? Larry Smith and Kipper Tabb host "Intimacy with God." Most of all you need to have a mentor, a discipler, some one who can speak into your headphones. That someone should be further along and they should be encouraging you to not just listen to them but to listen to the Word of God.

A good stage hand is a good listener, a learner, and a student who remembers it is His stage. Blessings.