the next day, but she didn’t feel very good about it afterward. Ted wasn’t receptive at all, and he almost sounded annoyed that she was even there. She just tried to be loving, and say the words that God put on her heart to say. God would have to take it from there.
As the years went by, Mary Lynn kept herself busy. She eventually quit substituting in order to avoid running into Bill Mars, and picked up more hours at Driggers. Between that and giving lessons, her income didn’t suffer, and life even seemed more structured. She would think about Ted or Bill from time to time, and would pray for them, but she never really had any romantic interests after that.
Then one day it happened. The worship pastor had said they were getting a new guitar player on the praise band, which they desperately needed, and he would be practicing with them at Thursday practice. As Mary Lynn was preparing her music and the transitions she would be asked to play, the worship pastor came up with the new guitarist. “Mary Lynn,” she heard, “this is Ted Kinney.”
She looked at the new guitar player and couldn’t believe her eyes. He looked like Ted, but a little older and more mature. He had that confident smile she remembered from high school, and he was dressed like a business man with his hair in a modern short style. Ted looked great.
“We’ve met,” he said to the worship pastor. “Been awhile, hasn’t it Mary Lynn?”
The re-introduction was brief and confusing, but they had to practice the set for Sunday so Mary Lynn determined to catch up with Ted after practice. “How could this be?” she thought all through practice. “What happened? Has he really changed?”
When they talked after practice, all of her questions were answered. Evidently their meeting that day in the jail had more of an impact that she had at first presumed. Ted did indeed seem to have his life turned around now, and God was using him in new ministry opportunities. Mary Lynn was pleasantly surprised, but she always knew that God could still do wonderful things if Ted would turn to Him.
From then on, Mary Lynn was a great friend to Ted and his family. They not only played together on the praise team, but they were often in the same small group Bible Studies and special ministries together as well. Musicians and church members would come and go, but Ted and his family remained special to Mary Lynn.
CHORUS 2
(The Field Trip)
Mark was really excited about visiting Southern Mountain church, and so was his wife. Sound Man Ron had said he was “stoked” about the opportunity as well, but Mark felt that Ted Kinney and Mary Lynn Dobson were just going as a favor to him. Either way, it would be a good experience for all of them to see how the ‘big boys’ do worship.
The Renaissance Youth group was using the church van that Saturday, but Ted had a large SUV that would fit everyone comfortably, so he offered to drive. Mark was in the passenger seat, with Mary Lynn and Mark’s wife Lisa in the middle row. Sound Man Ron was in the back listening to his MP3 player. Even though Southern Mountain was just in the next county, it was at the opposite end of the county, so it took about 40 minutes to get there.
Upon arriving, the Renaissance group parked in the visitor’s section and walked up to the front doors. Mark pulled out his phone and tapped it a couple of times, then spoke into it saying, “Doesn’t look like a church from the outside.” Ted shot him a funny look, so Mark offered, “I have a notes app on my phone. It’s easier than writing it down on a pad of paper.”
Ted offered, “Yes, but not nearly as private. I hope we don’t have to hear ‘pastor is obnoxious, has bad breath…’”.
Mark laughed and said, “You’re probably right. I can type on this app as well, that may be the better option.”
Just inside the front doors was a welcome desk with a pleasant woman sitting at a table. She looked up at the group and said with a smile, “Hi, I’m Cindy, welcome to Southern Mountain!”
“Hi Cindy,” Mark replied, “I’m Mark Flanders and we’re from Renaissance church. I believe Caleb is expecting us.”
“He sure is!” Cindy said, still sounding cheerful. “Let me just give him a call and tell him you’re here.”
“Thank you.” Mark said.
In a few minutes, Caleb came in from down the hallway. “Hello!” he said, “You must be the group from Renaissance church.”
“We are.” said Mark. “Are you Caleb?”
“I am.” replied Caleb as the two reached out and shook hands. “Is this your entire team?” he asked pointing to the group.
“No,” Mark said, “Ron here is our sound guy, Ted plays guitar, Mary Lynn plays piano and Lisa is my wife… she’s not on the praise team.”
“Welcome to Southern Mountain,” Caleb said as he shook hands with each in turn. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around the church.”
They started with the welcome center, and Caleb described how it was staffed whenever the church doors were open. He then took them through the children’s wing and the youth wing, where the youth had their own services. Caleb explained to Mark that there was a youth worship band as well, but they would not be there until Sunday morning. Caleb took the Renaissance team through the library and the cafe, then into the sanctuary. If they were impressed with the size of the outside of the church, they were astounded with the size of the sanctuary. This was more like an arena than a church. Mark estimated that each of the four viewing screens was bigger than the entire stage at Renaissance.
There were three levels of seating in the ‘sanctuary’, and it looked like the sound booth was located in a section of the second level that was walled off from the rest. As Mark looked at the stage, there was a conspicuous lack of wires. “I presume you use wireless mics?” he asked Caleb.
“Oh yeah,” Caleb responded, “wireless everything. The in-ear monitors are wireless, the mics are wireless, the guitar and bass systems are wireless. It’s not just for aesthetics, although that’s part of it, but this way everyone is free to move about the stage as needed… or off the stage if needed.”
“They control their own monitor mixes?” Mark added.
“Yeah,” said Caleb, “we keep their modules out of sight, but they’re close enough to adjust when they need to. And you won’t see any music stands or guitar stands, we try to keep the stage as uncluttered as possible.”
“You never use sheet music?” Mark asked.
Caleb shook his head. “No, we require our musicians to memorize their parts. One of our mottos is ‘don’t practice until you can play it right, practice until you can’t play it wrong’.”
Mark typed into his phone.
“Can we see the sound booth?” asked Ron.
“Sure,” Caleb replied, “follow me.”
They walked up a set of stairs to the second level where there was a short hallway. Halfway down the hallway was a door marked simply ‘Audiovisual’. Caleb knocked on the door before opening it up. This room was about the size of Renaissance’s stage.
“Hey Jimmy,” Caleb said to a middle-aged man sitting at a console. “Everything ready for service tonight?”
“Yep.” Jimmy answered, “These friends of yours?”
“This is part of the worship team from Renaissance Church.” Caleb informed him.
“Pleased to meet you.” said Jimmy.
Ron looked at the console and said out loud, “I’ve never seen that many channels on one board before.”
Jimmy laughed and said, “Yeah, we rarely use them all but it’s nice to have them when we need them. The board is all digital, and over here are our effects and equalizers. That area over there has all of the wireless systems, and to your left are the camera feeds.”
“How many people does it take to run all of this?” Mark asked.
“We’ve got a pretty good sized team on Sunday mornings,” Jimmy began, “but that includes a dozen or so up here plus camera operators, plus techs backstage in case anything h
appens down there.”
Caleb went ahead and took the team back down to the stage where he explained the setup and equipment, including a plexiglass room completely enclosed for the drummer. As they were talking, the Southern Mountain praise team began showing up. As each one came on stage, Caleb would introduce them to the Renaissance team. Soon the stage was full of musicians. Mark counted a drummer, bass player, three guitars, a percussionist, piano, synth/keyboards and four vocals.
“If you all want to have a seat on the front row,” Caleb said, “we’ll go ahead and do our dress rehearsal.”
Mark agreed and led his team down to the first row of seats. He took his phone back out and began typing. Mark noticed several things as he was typing them into his phone. The first was, everybody on stage looked to be between 24 and 34, and could have just walked off of a Nashville stage. He also noted that all four of the singers were as talented as Kat Driggers, and when they all sang together during the choruses, it was like a choir of angels. As for the guitars, there was obviously a lead and a rhythm electric, as well as the acoustic (which was played by Caleb). It was also interesting that they had both a piano and a synth/keyboard part. At first Mark thought those parts would be duplicative, but they played completely different parts.
Mark continued taking notes through the practice, then he and his crew were escorted back to the audiovisual room for the service. They watched in awe as the