A Week In The Life of Jon Hemsley
Published: WORSHIP
Jon Hemsley, technical services officer for Church Of Our Saviour in Singapore, takes Worship AVL Asia through a typical week.
Monday:
My day off. I spend it with my wife and 6-month-old son!
Tuesday:
Tuesday is our post-production day. It’s the day when all of the material captured over the weekend is edited, formatted and put up online. We capture both audio and video for our sermons and I’m responsible for editing the audio sermon and creating the MP3 files that end up as archives (96Kbps) and as web streaming (18Kbps). Depending on the week, this can be as simple as locating the start and finish point then optimising the gain, to as complex as compiling segments from three different services. We also edit out any clicks, pops and coughs as well as any material deemed unsuitable for broadcast.
We also capture audio for the worship times which I then edit and send on to the worship teams for their evaluation and learning. We have thought of making these recordings available via our website, but due to difficulty in securing permission from the copyright agencies we’ve canned this idea.
Tuesday afternoons are spent tidying the stage in our main auditorium, making sure cables runs are clean and that nothing has gone walkabout during the weekend. Knowing exactly where every piece of equipment is and where each cable goes is very important in allowing us to react to any situations over the weekends. We also use this time to look into any faults that could not be rectified over the weekend. This normally means re-soldering any bad cables and sending faulty items to the service centre. By tackling this on the first day of the week, we’re able to maximise the turnover for any repairs to ensure everything is up by the weekend.
Wednesday:
This is the day where we have a lot of fun. Our auditorium is equipped with a 32-track Logic Pro system, used both to multi-track our worship times and for any recording projects that may come along. Right now we’re working on an album with our Chinese Youth congregation. We also use this multi-track system as a learning tool, running the tracks back through the FOH board as a virtual soundcheck. This allows us to fine tune our mixing and increase familiarity for new team members.
Thursday:
Thursday morning we have our Staff Worship meeting. This is actually a small church service in itself, and is a key time of teaching, prayer and intersession leading up to the weekend services. This staff meeting is also the latest we will accept any special material for the weekend. Any material for playback, such as video clips, must be tested to ensure smooth playback – and slides need to be formatted to fit our screens.
Thursday afternoon is our second maintenance time. This time the focus is on the auxiliary hall, music rooms and classrooms. We make sure all projector filers are cleaned fortnightly, and that every piece of equipment is in good working condition.
Friday:
Friday is mostly kept open for finishing up anything we’ve been working on through the week. It’s also occasionally a recording day. The only fixed task for Friday is sync’ing audio to accompany our announcements slide reel.
Saturday:
We have two English language services in our main auditorium on Saturdays: a main service at 3.30pm and our youth service at 6.00pm. Both of these services are contemporary, but the worship teams and service content are different to suit the demographics of the youth and main congregations.
My Saturday starts at 1.00pm. The audio team for the youth service – a mix of full time staff and youth volunteers – arrives to set up the stage ready for soundchecks. Our youth worship team soundcheck from 2.00pm–2.45pm, after which the stage is handed over to the main service team. It’s then a mad rush to get the main service team soundcheck completed, as the hall fills up for the 3.30pm service.
Our normal service set up is with a full time staff at FOH and a volunteer running the stage monitor, an Aviom IEM system. The second staff on duty is responsible for any troubleshooting. The most challenging part of the week is usually the transition from the 3.30pm service into the youth service. On a good week the 3.30pm service wraps up at 5.30pm, giving us a full 30 minutes to reset the stage, lighting and projections for the youth. However, it’s not uncommon for the 3.30pm service to overrun. One recent service overran until past 6.00pm, leaving us only the 5 minutes it takes to clear the hall and for a new group to enter for our entire reset. Given these circumstances a digital console is the only option available. We’re currently running Yamaha PM5Ds at both FOH and monitors.
Sunday:
We have two English language services on Sunday morning, at 8.30am and 10.30am. These contemporary style services are essentially repeat sittings with the same preacher and worship team covering both. Our call time is normally around 7.00am with the worship team arriving between 7.15am and 7.30am. This gives us at least 45 minutes to run a through soundcheck and to rehearse any special arrangements. The services run back to back, and we hand over the hall to our Chinese congregation at 1.00pm.