The Bells Are RInging

The bells are ringing again at APC. Thanks to the vision and initiative of our new receptionist, Carol Shaw, the bells are now ringing again.

Carol loves the sound of the bells, and researched how they might be brought back to life at APC. She discovered a computer and amplifier setup that was fairly inexpensive. The purchased was proposed and approved, and ordered. It arrived this week.

The system was installed this week by our tech man, Jonathan Kofahl, and the bells are chiming today on the hour. It is beautiful, sweet music.

Did you know the science of bell ringing is called "campanology"? No wonder the bell tower of my alma mater is called Sather Tower, or in common reference, the Campanile.

A church bell is a bell which is rung in a (especially Christian) church either to signify the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other service. Before mass communication they were the only way to gather a village together, so they served for secular functions also. (wikipedia)

When I was the pastor at Faith United Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, we tried to resurrect our bell ringing. We had an old tape system with an endless loop. We tinkered with it one day, and got it to work. And all day, the bells rang on the hour.

The next morning, we got to church and discovered that the bells were ringing. And ringing. And ringing. evidently, they had been ringing all night long. We got into the office to discover our voicemail machine full of increasingly angry comments.

"Hi. Please turn your bells off, my kids are trying to sleep."

"Hi again, we'd really like your bells to stop ringing, it is now past midnight."

"Hey, if you don't turn those bells off, we are calling to cops."

"%@%$@#%@$#! I am going to get my gun and shoot someone if you don't turn those ^!@%%#! bells off right now!"

We shut off the bells, and eventually patched things up with our neighbors.

We are hoping this new system at APC will be a pleasant blessing to the community, and draw people to think about God on a regular basis. [SDG - JS]