A Ministry of Sound Tracks and Slide Shows

[While this blog is officially inactive, I am adding an occasional “re-entry” just to keep the thing breathing.]

At a 2009 reunion at Union Theological Seminary-PSCE in Richmond, Va., I ran into someone with whom I crossed paths three decades ago. (I suppose that’s what reunions are for…but this acquaintance wasn’t on my UTS radar.) I was producing weekly “Celebration Rock” shows in the studios of the former WBBL at Grace Covenant Church, and part of my informal contract with the church was to enable WBBL to serve the religious community beyond what we put on the air. The faithful stewardship of that production facility was to help local community and church groups in their media outreach.

In exchange for the free use of the studio for my own programs, I served as consultant, producer, writer, engineer, and voice for a number of Virginia volunteer-based community groups who wanted to get their message(s) across through radio PSAs and “slide shows.” (Remember, this was w-a-y before Powerpoint and even before video equipment was easily accessible to non-profits.) The man I bumped into at the reunion was one of the people I worked with early on in this ministry of sound tracks and slide shows. His exact role/title escapes me after all these years, but there he was at the seminary reunion still using the phrase that defined the project we designed: the ministry of higher education. He coordinated campus ministries in colleges and universities throughout Virginia, and needed a way to interpret that work to church audiences in a creative way, certainly with the hope of prompting financial support.

We solicited slides from various schools, and collaborated on a script. Then I was to arrange the slides, add some music, and do the voice-over narration. The whole “show” had to be duplicated for use throughout the region. Hoping that the statute of limitations has passed, and that no copies of those audio cassettes even exist to this day, I can now admit that we pretty much stole the background music (various obscure instrumental cuts).  We had no budget for “licensed” music, or even for cheap “production music.” So, to give the soundtrack some life, I looked around for some albums and lifted the tracks to mix into our script. I suppose our mantra back then was “no harm, no foul,” but I’ve become a bit of a stickler about such things now. (Well, now that the internet is full of cheap music and my video editing system comes complete with decent soundtrack music cleared for home and/or  non-profit use…)

Other “shows” produced at WBBL back then included a soundtrack and voice work for an interpretation piece for the Richmond Chaplaincy Service, and another for the Virginia Chaplaincy Service, both providing ministries to jails and/or prisons. I also did a soundtrack for something called the Wilderness Odyssey, a Virginia-based environmental adventure organization, and was able to use the audio portion of their slide show as a feature on two of my radio programs.  Another beneficiary of our A-V service (that’s “Audio-Visual” for those under 40!) was a “Synod School” held each summer at the Massanetta Springs Conference Center in Harrisonburg, Va. I recently ran across a tray of slides from that “show” and wondered what in the world to do with that collection. Am I the archivist of the ’70’s? Or, should I just add it all to the local landfill?

Once we moved from slides to video, and from my WBBL base to the Video Education Center at PSCE, it was good stewardship to offer voice, audio soundtrack, and video production services to local organizations such as Volunteer Emergency Foster Care of Virginia, the Richmond Hill urban retreat center, and the Virginia Council of Churches.  

Just so you know, in retirement I’ve created “Digital Shoestring Productions,” and have produced a couple of DVDs to help interpret and promote some Presbytery projects. The next video produced on a shoestring budget will show our local Habitat For Humanity affiliate at work. It will be my first effort available on the web. Stay tuned.

Love Connections

(While the Celebration Rock blog is inactive, now and then some new thought occurs and I exercise my perogative and add a page to the collection. Thus, this entry.)

Facebook connections have brought about the recovery of three “lost episodes” of “Celebration Rock,” making one particular listener very happy, while helping me add to my own list of digitized CR programs. (To preserve the anonymity of the folks involved, I’ll use only their first names.)

Some 25 years ago, Mary was a student at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, where I directed the Video Education Center. As part of her work scholarship, Mary was a video production assistant. She was getting married during the summer and asked if I would officiate at the service. I had to decline because I wasn’t available for the date she and Mark had chosen.  

Since I had recently performed a number of other weddings (the word “perform” always an interesting choice when referring to the leading of various church rituals), though,  it occurred to me that “love and marriage” could be the theme of my next CR show. Finding music about love wouldn’t be hard, of course, and I knew there were some songs about marriage and commitment that I could add to the mix. And for the script…that was going to be easy, too. All I had to do was cull some thoughts from the many wedding meditations I had used for marriage services through the years.

With Mary and her financee Mark in mind, I gathered the records and wrote the script. It was evident early on that I had way too much material for one program, so I produced a two-part series on “love and marriage,” and dedicated it to Michael and Illyse, Hal and Debbie, Bob and Ruth, as well as to Mary and Mark. (Now, I have to admit that with all the weddings I did over my 40+ years in active ministry, I have forgotten many couples’ names and circumstances, but those four couples I knew fairly well before their weddings.)

Thanks to Facebook, Mary and I reconnected after all these years, and she read parts of this CR blog. She found the lists of all the CR programs that still exist on tape and/or CD, and looked in vain for the show(s) that she and Mark had been mentioned on. She wrote me to inquire about it, and I confessed that I didn’t have any tapes labeled “Love and Marriage.” I looked again through the collection of existing programs, but no, I had to report, that theme was among the missing. But if it ever turns up, Mary, I’ll let you know.

Well, it turned up a few weeks ago, but not among my scores of reels and CDs. Someone else found me through Facebook, a guy named John. He too had looked through the blog lists of my shows and wrote to say that he had at least three that I didn’t have. He had taped shows off the air, and had saved audiocassettes of the two “Love and Marriage” programs, plus a Gordon Lightfoot program that featured the 1983 “Salute” album. John offered me CDs of the cassettes, and I traded him three other shows that he expressed some interest in.

So, CD copies of the “Love and Marriage” programs are in the mail to Mary. She’ll hold onto them until her 25th wedding anniversary and then give them to Mark. They’ll hear their names “on the radio,” but much more fun will be listening to love songs from 25-35 years ago, some songs they may not have heard since then! 

My thanks to John for his contribution to the CR archives, and for being such a faithful listener in 1985 and taping the shows off the air. And thanks to all who appreciate and celebrate the ministry that was “Celebration Rock.”