By Harlan Finch, Media Ministry Desk

CEDAR BEND — At Willow Creek Community Chapel, the most carefully guarded inventory item is neither the good scissors nor the fellowship-hall coffee. It is a scratched black presentation clicker whose AA batteries are replaced, exclusively, by deacon Lloyd Fenwick from a dented Altoids tin taped under the sound-booth shelf and marked in Sharpie: "CLICKER ONLY — NOT FOR NURSERY."

Fenwick, 61, established the ritual after the Great Fade of Easter 2014, when the clicker quit during the second verse of "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" and the screen froze on a slide that simply said "VERSE 2." The congregation finished a cappella. The tech team finished in silence. By the following Wednesday, Fenwick had bought a twelve-pack of a single brand, emptied a mint tin and taped it where only booth volunteers can reach.

"Any other battery and it gets soft after the welcome," he said. "These last through announcements, three hymns and the sermon points if nobody holds the button down during the prayer." He replaces both cells every other Saturday before he mows the side lot. He initials a log sheet taped beside the tin. The log goes back to 2015. Nobody else has signed it.

Worship leader Paige Norwood keeps a spare clicker in her bag "just in case," which Fenwick regards as a theoretical object. "That one takes the wrong size," he said. "And it has a laser pointer. We do not need a laser pointer." Norwood has not contested this in seven years.

The tin itself has become policy. A 2019 nursery request for two AAs for a singing toy was denied with a sticky note: "Ask facilities. This is clicker." Facilities redirected the request to the supply closet, which redirected it to the office, which bought a separate four-pack labeled "NURSERY — OK TO USE." The clicker tin was never opened for the toy.

Youth volunteers who rotate through the booth receive a two-minute briefing: do not borrow from the tin, do not put used batteries back in the tin, and if the clicker feels soft mid-service, raise a hand toward Fenwick's usual pew rather than improvise. Fenwick sits on the aisle for this reason. He has left mid-sermon twice, both times returning with fresh cells before the next slide.

A proposal to buy a rechargeable clicker was raised in 2021 and tabled after Fenwick asked who would remember to charge it. "A battery you can see is a battery you can trust," he said. Minutes show the motion failed without a second.

At press time, the tin held six unused pairs and one empty wrapper from last Saturday. The clicker advanced every slide on cue. Fenwick watched from the aisle anyway, one hand near his pocket, where he keeps a single emergency pair "in case the tin is ever wrong."