Ed Stoffel

I've heard complaints about various churches over the years, and often enough, the complaints have to do with church youth groups. Some churches don't have youth groups, so people think they should. Those churches with youth groups invariably get rapped for not running the youth groups right. So what's a church to do?

I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of parents in our society are used to parenting by proxy (as Dr. Laura calls it). They have daycare, they have public or private schools, they have sports teams, etc., to enroll their kids in and watch them taught, coached, trained and entertained. But when the time comes that they have problems... they think they need another program to enroll their kids in.

Perhaps the more fundamental question is this... what are you hoping you'll find in the youth group that you can't do yourself? Is it training? Socializing? Exposure to something in particular that doesn't exist outside of youth groups? In reality, every parent has the opportunity to arrange any and all of this without the formal existance of a youth group. Often enough, formal ministries have emerged from informal roots, where parents decide to meet with a handful of other parents with kids the same age, to arrange things they can do together. Maybe it's up to you as parents to make adult friends with other like-minded families. Once you adults know each other, you can put your heads together and think of things to do as families.

There really aren't magic youth groups out there just waiting for you to call. But wherever you live, there are opportunities for you to take action, and just maybe, help out other parents with similiar views and concerns about their own kids.

I understand that companies are worried about their employees' blogging practices, and their effects on a company's public image. It's emerging law that individual blog authors can be pursued for libel. But what if it's the truth? I'm disturbed to learn this week that one company has brought the matter to the negotiating table --- making it part of the final settlement that a union must remove all negative information about the company, replacing it with "positive information". Should companies be able to force unions to remove historical accounts of a company's poor treatment? Should companies be able to require unions to post positive information and contract offer recommendations? This disturbs me.

When it comes to the church sound system, I strive to make it so that the elements of each worship service can be clearly heard without any distraction of the equipment itself. The pulpit has a mounted mic; the pastor wears a wireless mic which transmits to its base on several available frequencies; and the piano is miked for the benefit of our ensemble orchestra across the room, so they can play in sync. We record the sermons direct to CD audio, and duplicate copies during the week for those who wish them. We also convert the CD audio to MP3 files which are available from the church website, heard as streaming audio, downloadable MP3 files, or podcasts. But then, some are still left out. Some in the pews may have difficulty hearing, so we've installed an assisted listening system which broadcasts the service to small receivers with earplugs. Our greeters make these available to people during each service on request. Still others may be homebound and unable to attend our services. So we've had to consider whether it's possible to make the services available for them. Keep in mind that these are most often our senior members who aren't likely to be connected to the internet or rocking to their iPods.

For those who wish to listen from home, I've arranged to send the audio of the service to them by phone. I picked up several Gentner telephone hybrid devices (a.k.a. phone couplers) to push audio across a phone line. Line level audio from the sound board is plugged into the device as well as a phone line, and the device is set to auto-answer. (Since one of our phone lines is also used for a fax line, it was necessary to add privacy blocks to each device on the line, to prevent the fax machine from picking up and chirping during the service.) To mix the service for phone feeds, I've selected all the audio sources to be heard on an aux channel. In addition, I've placed an extra mic in the room for ambient pickup of everything that occurs off-PA-mike during the service including singing and the ensemble... and that's added to the aux channel pre-fade. If we were a church that mixed audio for broadcast, I'd place mics to cover everything that occurs during a service, mixing for both PA and broadcast.

For each person wishing to listen to the service, we equip them with a speakerphone and a speed-dial button programmed for their hybrid's telephone number. So each Sunday, they can sit down in their favorite chair, press one button, and listen in on our church service.

I've been listening to podcasts for some time now, but finally, someone has written a comprehensive review of conservative podcasts, with a long list of sources:

- Radio show archives seem to be the most prevalent podcasts in the conservative community. Rush Limbaugh offers them for a fee, and Laura Ingraham requires payment for more than a ten-minute segment. However, many others are available for free. Social conservatives have several programs from which to choose. For many years, organizations have offered streaming audio or video of their recent events. A few organizations are bravely recording material for podcast use alone. Ironically, it’s the purposefulness of these broadcasts which makes me like them the most.

 Podcasting: The latest trend in talk, Jennifer Biddison

As more and more police, fire and rescue radios move to trunked systems, they're becoming harder to find. Police and Fire in Warren county Virginia recently moved, and I've been wondering where they went to --- until I found out about Radio Reference. To find what you're looking for there, click on the "database" link. They had all the latest frequencies, and I was back to listening to them the same day. Front Royal Police have moved to 800MHz on a trunked system shared with other users in the county. Most of what they're doing is in the clear. It takes a little getting used to because of the shared use. At first, I thought the police department was sounding awful casual these days... until I realized one of the shared users is a local cab company with a very rude dispatcher. So to know who is who... the ones who sound professional are the police - Front Royal and Warren County Sheriff's Office. Warren County Fire and Rescue has also moved to new frequencies, but not 800MHz for some reason. They just switched to the new channels in January 2006, and sound like they're getting used to the new system.

"Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?" ModX

These are the frequencies I have on file for Virginia Fire and Rescue. Again, I suspect that some of these frequencies have been abandoned as municipalities move toward trunked service on the 800 and 900MHz bands:

Here is a collection of scanner frequencies for Virginia police, though some have probably changed recently. I haven't heard a peep on Front Royal's police frequencies lately, making me suspect they've gone to the 800MHz band like everybody else.