“Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.” – Walter Scott
Can you imagine going to church without microphones and speakers? It sounds like a foreign concept to not have singers and speakers on a mic. The microphone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. If that name sounds familiar, it is the guy who invented the telephone. The world’s first electronic microphone was used to make phone calls. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the microphone started to be used for musical performances. We have only had microphones in church for the last one hundred years. It’s crazy to think that it wasn’t that long ago. Often, when churches were designed back then, the main consideration was how to get sound to travel from the preacher to the people. It’s amazing to think about how much technology has changed since then.
When my wife and I visited Bruges, Belgium, we walked inside the Church of Our Lady. We were taken aback by the setup of the sanctuary, and one large wooden structure in particular. It was the ornately carved pulpit. The soundboard above it was designed to project the sound of whoever was speaking at the time. No microphones, but the reflection of sound. The rest of the church itself is very beautiful. It’s hard not to stand inside it and not just be in awe of it. The Church of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic church in Bruges, Belgium, dating mainly from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Its 115.6-meter-high (379 ft) tower remains the tallest structure in the city and the third tallest brickwork church tower in the world. Here are some of the photos I captured of the inside of it and around the church.
Through Griffin's Lens 