Baptisms and Technology

Up until about this time last week, I thought I was participating in a Baptism on Sunday. Then my supervisor asked me if I'd like to actually do the part with the water, and I was rather taken aback!

While I can't preside at Communion yet, presiding at a Baptism isn't a problem - as a Local Preacher for almost ten years, I could in theory have been doing baptisms for some time. However, when it's your first time quite literally holding the baby, saying the words, and sprinkling the water it's a little daunting.

In some ways this is where the technology enters the picture. No, this was not "RoboPreach", the Mechanical Minister. With a large number of people who aren't regulars, and not enough copies of the current Service Book to go round, we had gone for the hi-tech approach of having a Laptop with the service on it, a projector, and a screen. This is where the fun starts. Having not used a screen at the church before, we had a bit of a time of it working out where to put it, where to put the projector, and how to get it all up and running. The actual techy bits at this point were fine - it was more about having to bring in a table, a small stool and several old hymn books to prop up the projector with that was the problem!

Of course all of this time the clock is ticking, and so it was a very short time indeed before the service that I was finally in the vestry; the Baptism itself was early on, and I didn't have too much time to think and get worried about doing it all correctly before we began....

As a result it went OK, with one minor technical hitch due to one slide being in the wrong order. And when I have to do it again at the end of January, I will at least know a bit better the practicalities of what I'm doing - such as trying to make sure the water is warm, in order to avoid howls of protest...

Another thing that I'll know how to do is how to make booklets more easily. As the parents and Godparents would be facing the wrong way to simply read off the screen, I produced some A5 copies of what they needed to see. This took some time, as I tried to get the pages in the right order, printed the right way round etc. Only now have I discovered that I could have saved myself a lot of effort. I've been using OpenOffice - a free and legal alternative to Microsoft Office if you don't have the money - and had I done a quick Google search on Saturday Night I'd have found the easy way to do it. For anyone else struggling with the same thing - set the page size to A5 Portrait, and when you come to print it out make sure the printer is set to A4 Landscape, then go onto the "Options" button on the Print Dialogue. There's an option there to print Brochure. If your printer does double-sided by itself then select both right and left pages, if not just select the right pages, then reload the printed pages into the printer and repeat with just the left pages.

It's so much easier when you actually go and look for help - something I need to bear in mind for the future!