Volume

The music was too loud at church today. It may have been too loud last week, too, but we showed up too late to know.

While we were looking for a church, a lot were disqualified because the sound guys just had things cranked up tooooo loud.

For instance, when we visited Church X, we took three steps into the sanctuary, did a U-turn, and politely and regretfully informed the usher we couldn't stay. We didn't think it would be good stewardship over the two perfectly fine ears God had given us.

Our neighbors attend Church Y. He's an audio engineer. He knows about decibels & stuff. Surely their church would be a safe haven for our ears. So, we visited their church. Once. Our neighbors later said they were able to use our failure to return as a concrete example when talking with their elders about the music volume.

So, after that, we jokingly referred to our walking out of deafness-inducing churches as our "ministry."

And, maybe it is. We were told today that Church X has done a few things to mitigate their sound. They've re-equalized, installed some sound barriers and sound absorbing materials. Too many people were complaining about the music being too loud.

Unfortunately, the guy telling us about Church X's sound mitigation didn't mention the cheapest, easiest, and most effective solution: Teaching the sound guy to rotate his wrist counterclockwise while gripping the volume knob.

We've offered to help the church we're attending buy a decibel meter.