My Personal Gratitude

Posted by on December 22, 2002 under Bulletin Articles

Rarely does a single day pass without reminders of ways many of you “quietly” touch the lives of others. My situation positions me to see many of your quiet acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. I personally appreciate every act of kindness! Thank you for thinking of others. Thank you for allowing God to increase your concern for others. Thank you for demonstrating love for God through thoughtfulness to people.

May I express gratitude to a much appreciated group? We easily assume everything will be “just right” in our worship. When worship is “just right,” we easily assume it just happened. Those are false assumptions! It never “just happens!” Many unseen people conscientiously care for needs and responsibilities. Though they are not seen, we would miss them if they were not there! One such group is our projectionists.

Our announcements do not “just happen” to be on the screen. The communion picture does not “just happen” to appear. The words for our songs do not “just happen” to be there for us to see. The pictures or words in sermons do not “just happen.” Were it not for the work of our projectionists, those pictures and words could not be there.

Several years ago we started projecting pictures and words with some sermons in our desire to intensify the worship experience for many. Some of us learn visually. To combine visuals with spoken words increased the learning experience.

Next we projected our announcements prior to worship. This enabled us to inform people without devoting significant amounts of worship time to announcements.

In time we projected an appropriate picture with a few words at communion to aid Christians who are visually oriented. The objective: intensify worship as we commune.

For those who serve us as projectionists (David Pippin, Darrell Moses, Brad Walker, and Hank Watlington), intensifying worship involved a lot of work. On Fridays or Saturdays, they had three to five hours of preparation to make for Sunday!

For several months many requested that the words of our songs be projected on our screen. Doing this required a significant increase in preparation time. When we began projecting the words to our songs, we also moved much of the slide preparation to the office. Debbie Belote now prepares most of the slides for the projectionists.

During an assembly when pictures or words appear on the screen, be aware that many “quietly” make it happen! Personally, I deeply appreciate all they do! It requires concentration and skill to “make it happen.” To all who help “make it happen,” I personally thank you for your help as we honor God!