FRONT OF HOUSE
ARE YOU LISTENING? | Kent Morris
Dr. Charles Stanley, whom I served for many years as an audio engineer at First Baptist Atlanta, had several famous sayings. There is the classic,“ Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him” and the direct,“ Helen Keller was blind and deaf when she graduated from college with honors, so what’ s your problem?” to the timeless,“ Are you listening? Say amen if you’ re listening.” This last one is worth considering as we mix each week at church. Are we truly listening, not just to frequencies and levels, but to structure, harmonics, and timbre?
Romans 10:17 tells us,“ faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” The first part refers to physical hearing; the mechanical propagation of sound waves reaching the ear canal and ear drum, followed by the transduction to electrical energy by the stereocilia via a chemical process. We hear the sermon with our body. The second hearing is the spiritual act of the Holy Spirit as He moves a person’ s heart toward acceptance of the Gospel. We hear the Holy Spirit with our soul. It is intriguing God chose sound as the one mechanism that is vital to salvation. It could have been sight, touch, taste, or smell, but He selected sound which tells us it is important to get sound right.
Listening is the next phase of the hearing process. Hearing is one thing while listening is another. Turning frequencies, levels, and cadence into understanding falls to listening with intent. Music designed as background energy is not appropriate in a worship setting.
Worship music directs musical progression toward the goal of engaging people to recognize an attribute of God or to call us into reflection. It is never about entertainment, for how can we be entertained while encountering the eternal God of the universe? The sermon is more than a TED talk. It is admonition to repentance, edification of the church body, and education of the theology in play in a given verse. As such, we as mix engineers must focus on conveying the core aspects of the sonic content. From accurately reinforcing the pastor’ s voice to articulately laying out the tapestry of the song’ s elements, we have to be intentional.
The first test of intent is the near elimination of distractions. Head mics should never rub against cheeks, wireless should not drop out, and effects should be tailored to the song. While church is a live event and live events invite failure, we can prevent most failures by thinking about the next step at all times.“ What happens when this song ends and what do I need to sequence out in cascading steps? Wait for the music fade, engage the mute groups for vocals and then instruments, turn off the back monitors, preselect the pastor’ s channel, bring up the fader on the muted video feed input, watch for the pastor to hit the first step, unmute the pastor, listen for any anomalies in their voice, fix them, and then unmute the video input when cued.” Having a plan makes all the difference.
The second test of intent is to anticipate the flow. While some churches are liturgical and follow a distinct order, others are more fluid
in their approach which requires constant focus. If the worship pastor is standing near a stand mounted microphone and moves in that direction, be ready to unmute it just after it is released from its clip. When a song is engaging the congregation, don’ t assume the scripted stop will happen. Instead, be prepared for a reprise, even if none is noted in the order of service.
Third, intent is essential to bringing the sound system into order. From meshing the front fills’ frequency response into that of the mains to setting the delay times properly for the balcony, taking the time to dial in the rig is vital. Start with the mains, get them sounding as they should in the room with known material that is aligned with the church’ s content. Then bring in the subs to fill out the bottom two octaves, but not to overpower the mains. Then add the front fills / center fill with high-pass set to 350Hz and low-passed at 12KHz. Finally, add any stage monitors with an ear toward having them mesh with the front firing speakers and high-pass set to 250Hz.
Our role is to provide an environment conducive to worship. We are not to“ make worship happen” but are there to allow both physical and spiritual hearing to take place unencumbered by technology or its ills.
Kent Morris Kent Morris, recipient of the 2025“ Roby Duke Creative Life Award” presented at the Christian Musician Summit, is a 47-year veteran of the AVL arena driven by passion for excellence tempered by the knowledge all technology is in a temporal state.
78 October 2026 Subscribe for Free...