Equipment, Equipment and Equipment!
Wow, you really do forget just how much equipment you need when you are starting from scratch.
If we have to do another order from Gear4Music then we are really going to lose the plot! Honestly, even the delivery driver is looking at us with a puzzled look. He must be wondering why we didn’t buy everything in one order because he will know that we could have saved a fortune on shipping. We must have been ordering two or three times a day for the last two weeks! Each time we have been sure that we have everything in our basket but as soon as the transaction has been completed then another thing springs to mind.
Our house is beginning to look like some sort of shop at the moment. We will be so glad when we can leave most of it at the home of One Church but until we start with our team talks at the start of October then we have accustomed ourselves to the fact that our house will remain a tip.
We are so blessed really; many other church planters must find it so hard. There is such a big financial outlay and it’s not like we are going for the most expensive equipment. We are trying to stick to budget and get mid-range items that we know will do the job. It’s surreal really as previously we were able to get what we wanted. We really do have to be disciplined and sensible by thinking into things a lot more than we had previously done. To be truthful, it has been so much fun though especially when things haven’t really gone to plan. At times we’ve had to learn the hard way because ‘simple church’ is not always so simple!
Being in a smaller setting means that what we would normally use in a bigger setting is not always required in the same way. It took the pressure off us financially but we were having to rethink every way of doing things. Fortunately, we are comfortable with trial and error and are happy to try new things and pull them if they don’t fit. I suppose that is the benefit of being a new church plant as there are no expectations. Literally there is nothing to ‘rate’ at this stage. Problems have arose when things don’t work like we expect them to work! Where do I even start with the keyboard? Keyboard chosen, keyboard ordered and keyboard arrived. You would think that it’s going to be all good from here on in, wouldn’t you? Yes, so did we but there only seemed to be one of us that was highly amused!
Somebody decided they would do a good deed and set the keyboard up to the laptop to save Leah time. What should have been a ten minute job had now taken 9 hours and not one sound had come out of it. To say frustration levels were high is an understatement but all I could do was laugh. Worship practice was an hour later and the embarrassment of taking the keyboard to Leah was not one of the finer moments. To be fair we shouldn’t have been embarrassed as now 7 people over at Leah’s could not get the thing working. It got so late that Leah had to use her piano as the practice needed to take place.
The next day I still sat about laughing as there was absolutely no way that we would be defeated by a keyboard. Honestly, we could recite every tutorial as they were played over and over again. We connected to a MacBook rather than a laptop to see if that would change anything but again nothing! To this day we have no idea what was changed but suddenly a beautiful sound appeared. Our 18 month old grandchild’s face was a picture as literally she had been teased for two whole days with the keyboard and now her beautiful little fingers were creating a sound that simply sounded beautiful. Maybe she holds the key to how it worked because literally we had tried everything. We didn’t care; it was a miracle.
Road trips to buy bargains were a genuine highlight for us. We had never heard of Facebook Marketplace, well we had but not to buy equipment. We thought that it was for clothes and the odd baby product but it’s crazy; whatever you need, someone is out there selling it so there is always a good deal to be done. Part of the team went to Lincolnshire to get a sound desk and had great conversations with the guy selling it. He was so glad that it would be used by a Church. He did all he could to help us and we were so thankful that it had its own flight case.
It was a blast from the past to us as the desk was the same as the old one that we used to have before we went digital. We had talked about starting with a digital desk but to be truthful we couldn’t justify paying that sort of money when this was available to us for peanuts! It was too good to refuse as it was like new and at our stage in our journey, a digital desk was just being a bit above our selves!
‘Stay real’ was the constant sound that echoed around our minds! We were happy and we finally felt ready to do this, well once we had the subscriptions and licences in place!
Simon & Valda
September 29th 2022
