Church – Wayne Connor

Church

Wayne — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 03:11:06 +0000

Under the ‘Church‘ heading above I have a stack of resources from how to select church PA gear to sermon ideas and some highlights of things we’ve done at DPC!

PA gear for churches

Wayne — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:31:03 +0000

Some brief and general hints for church PA stuff.

For foldback I’d go mackie powered speakers SRM350. They can then double up for events like men’s nights offsite, outdoor kids club etc – just put them on a stand. Go SRM 450 if you want to double up for bigger for outdoor events – we have 450’s they are what we use for church camps, men’s nights etc. They are great.

For main front of house speakers get advice as to what will suit your building. A pair of SRM450’s on stands will be adequate but you could get something sounding better hung from the middle of the building and ends up costing less. We picked up a bose 502 second hand for $100 and it sounds great, but it needs a controller ($500) and amp ($1000). Good alternatives to the Mackie SRM450’s are Quest or QSC powered speakers, both fantastic.

http://www.mackie.com/products/srmv2series/splash.html

By the time you muck round getting an amp and normal foldback speakers, the powered ones aren’t much dearer.

For Desk you can’t go wrong with Allen and Heath, basic and simple to use and good sound and reliable. They make varying sizes look at ZED range – even a 12 channel for around $500.

Their lower priced mixers are still good. Avoid powered desk if you can.

http://www.allen-heath.com/uk/products/pages/productslisting.aspx?CatId=ZEDSeries

We use PA series at church – ZED series and PA are the same sound except ZED has no output EQ, but I think PA series is a better build – more rugged.

DI box go behringer – cheap and work well.

Mics and wireless mics go shure SM58 for vocal, SM57 for instruments, and wireless SM58 for wireless.

For lectern mic go any condenser mic around $300, e.g. CAD, EV, Shure.

Where to buy?

Turramurra Music gives 10% off to churches.

I normally Google for who’s got a special. Check the price of new items off ebay for a comparison.By locally if you can for follow up it’s hard getting audi gear back to Sydney for warranty otherwise.

Places I like and have bought from:

http://www.melmusic.com.au/

http://www.smithys.com.au/

http://www.turramusic.com.au/Pages/Home.aspx

http://bavasmusic.com.au/store/index.php

http://www.djwarehouse.com.au/

http://www.allansbillyhyde.com.au/

Ring for a quote – never go off list price – with PA you can haggle on price.

For leads don’t get cheap ones, better off with a good $30-$40 mic lead as cheap ones will just cause problems later on like buzz, hum, crackle, pops, and it will be very hard to pinpont where the problem is coming from.

Wayne

Death by Meeting

Wayne — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:40:42 +0000

This article was thought provoking. I’m not sure what do to with it but I’m putting it here to keep me thinking about it. I hate boring meetings, but I’m not good at having constructive conflict in meetings either.
ARTICLE: DEATH MY MEETING

Minimising guilt at Easter

Wayne — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 06:42:49 +0000

Easter appropriate headline in the SMH today. We can do all sorts of things to minimise our guilt, buying fair-trade chocolate is one of them. I’m a sucker – I love chocolate and I’m sure fair trade Cadbury eggs will make me feel great.

But the bigger and better headline that I bet wont make the SMH is that Easter is actually about getting rid of guilt, all our guilt, that’s why Jesus came.

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. 1 Peter 3:18

Nike vs Jesus

Wayne — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:03:30 +0000

I just preached on Romans 1 last week and it was no surprise to see that the gods of our culture are no different to those 2000 years ago…
Aphrodite – the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality.
Nike the greek god of Victory
Hera the god of marriage and family.
Dionysus the god of wine and ecstasy.
Hermes looks after those who travel.
and so on…

We were made to worship. Romans 1 says not only do we suppress the truth about the real God, we then replace him with lesser things and serve created things instead of the creator. A sad but true analysis of Australia in 2011. Desperately searching for meaning everywhere except the one place we will find it.

Sensual Worship the road to apostacy?

Wayne — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:11:32 +0000

The article by Iain Murray called ‘discordant worship’ in the latest AP essentially seems to be saying that if we sing in a style of music that we like, then it’s a sin. Where does he go wrong? To begin with, he improperly defines ‘sensual’ as anything appealing to the senses. This is clearly not the way Jude is using the word. He then puts sensual in opposition to ‘spiritual’ and goes on to suggest that music in church distracts from pure spiritual worship.

According to Murray it was appropriate in the Old Covenant to use senses in the worship of God but not in the new covenant. Perhaps we should be blindfolded on the way into church? Perhaps all singing be banned not just contemporary music? Our musical scale is not derived from scripture and it does sound pleasant. What about the Lord’s Supper which makes use of the senses of sight and taste? Why is it that contemporary music is always evil but older music is not? All music is contemporary for some era.

I particularly liked this footnote in the original article, which didn’t make it into the Australian Presbyterian version:

‘If you start clapping your hands or stamping or moving them in a rhythmic manner, you are the whole time dealing with this realm of the emotions.’

I hope the author of this quote never reads Psalm 150.

I’m reminded of Colossians 2:20-23 “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

‘Sensual’ in the context of Colossians and Jude is the slavery to sexual immorality and evil desires – not music or singing.

I think as evangelicals if we have been handed a bad pass from those who came before us it is more likely to be a lack of emotional expression in our church meetings and Christian lives. James 5:13 links happiness with a song of praise, Colossians 3:16 links singing with gratitude. In Revelation 5 we have music accompanying praise. In Luke 7:31f Jesus confronts the Pharisees over precisely this issue: he is accused of overindulgence, and he rebukes them for not getting into the spirit of things! Joy comes as a response to the gospel, and the expression of that joy and praise of God through singing and music is entirely appropriate.

Men and Machines

Wayne — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:19:44 +0000

We had a ‘Men and Machines’ night last week – surprisingly easy to organise, a surprising number of cars and blokes that came out of the woodwork for the event. Great night. About 60 guests, plus 60 church blokes.

Men’s Convention

Wayne — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:31:50 +0000

I went to men’s convention last weekend with a group of 14 fellows from DPC. In the weeks leading up to men’s convention I inevitably think “is this really worth it, 3 1/2 hours drive for one day of talks”. As usual though, men’s convention was one of the most impacting weekends of the year. There’s something about hearing guys’s talk straight to other guys about serious things. Particularly, I’m thinking about the circumstances that surround temptation, how I can avoid them, and how I can fill my mind with good things.

The Social Network

Wayne — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:25:20 +0000

I saw ‘The Social’ Network’ yesterday. A good but very depressing movie. A modern day chapter of Ecclesiastes just without the happy ending. The last scene with Mark Zuckerberg sitting on facebook, friendless, hitting refresh hoping his old girlfriend might accept his friend request was especially tragic. I couldn’t help coming home and watching a few interviews with the real Zuckerberg, and he doesn’t seem as bad as the movie portrays him. But even though the movie is fiction, it’s hard not to view the real person badly after seeing a movie like that. The Social Network was a realistic portrayal of human selfishness and made me thankful for Jesus and real friendships. I’d recommend it for viewing except that there was way too much sex and women kissing for my liking.

Reflections on Total Church

Wayne — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:21:41 +0000

I think a question I’ve have been good at asking is what does it mean to be a Christian during the week? Maybe the question I haven’t been asking is, ‘What does it mean to be church during the week?’

The answer to that is NOT: ‘meeting together in a small group once a week…’

It means sharing our lives with each other, and with unbelievers. It means living out our identity in Christ not just individually but corporately.

In one sense it’s quite simple, and not that different to where we’ve being trying to head here in Dubbo, although these TC guys seem to be ahead of us.

I’m not sure whether Dave Thurston has read total Church but I think, apart from getting people to live near each other, what TC are doing is exactly what Dave is trying to do at Central Sydney Presbyterian Church (now Abbotsford). You can see it in most of his sermons and Bible Study material.

And it’s where I’ve been trying to take morning church. Bryson preached a cracker sermon about this kind of life in his love series here. Bryson hasn’t read any of the total church stuff yet but this talk was exactly what Tim Chester was talking about in his attractional versus missional church talk.

I think once you move past fighting about other issues and reacting to what the Catholics or Liberals or Pentecostals are doing – when you just start preaching the Bible and getting people to live it out – this is where you end up. Love God and love each other and share your lives and the good news with one another, together.

So I’m excited about it not because it’s anything new but because it’s refreshingly simple and the trajectory our church is on anyway – and it’s good to be able to look at other people who are ahead of you and learn from their mistakes!