A Shibboleth for Track

We have a big home varsity track meet today at the high school and they asked me to be the announcer for the public address system (something about me having a big mouth, I guess). 

At first I was a little apprehensive about the opportunity. It's not like I'm not used to speaking in public, but this is going to be the largest amount of people at one time by far (unless my sermon podcasts suddenly start taking off!) The other thing that caused me to hesitate is that I really enjoy walking around, seeing students compete and cheering for my youth group kids and my cross country kids, which is like my second youth group. And I cheer for all the students I've come to know as a substitute - which is pretty much all of the Pine City students. Wandering around also gives me the chance to chat with a bunch of the parents of students and other friends of mine.

But I've always thought it would be fun to be the announcer, and they were evidently desperate because they asked me, so I agreed to do it. It had nothing to do with the fact that our track meets this year have been very cold and windy and often rainy, and I would be up in the booth all dry and out of the elements. That's didn't factor in at all. It does give me the chance to enjoy all the races, even if I can't yell my encouragements to the Dragon runners (which really does help them, I'm sure.)

For a while I thought about trying to be extra funny or something. (I'm given to understand that there is a voice changing app where you can sound like Morgan Freeman or something? Maybe James Earl Jones.) Some of my students told me to intentionally mispronounce their name. I told them I will intentionally mispronounce a bunch of names, so if they hear me mangle someone's name, it's on purpose. That's my story, anyway.

But as I think about the other announcers I've heard, with a few exceptions (ie. Ms. Mill!), the best ones are the ones who don't draw attention to themselves, but to the content they are trying to convey. Nobody needs to hear my humorous asides as much as they need to hear what races they need to be getting ready for, or who finished in what place.

That's the essence of preaching (and a lot of other communication). It's primarily about the content, not the delivery (as long as the delivery isn't distracting). 

It should be good. After all, if I can pronounce all those Old Testament names (like Mephibosheth, Kibrothhattaavah, or Mahar-shalal-hash-baz), how hard can last names nowadays be? (Famous last words.)