Posted on 11/24/2007 6:53:25 AM PST by paltz
The Church at Severn Run in Anne Arundel County, Md., has a wireless network in its cafe that lets parents work and peruse the Internet while waiting for their children to finish Sunday school. And at McLean Bible Church in Virginia, fancy lighting, rock music and occasional applause spice up spirited sermons.
The stepped-up use of technology has changed the way people worship in a way that some parishioners and experts like and others don’t.
“I think God would be pleased with this,” said the Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., pastor of the 10,000-member Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Md. “I don’t think that God would want us to try to evangelize like Jesus did 2,000 years ago.”
Or would he? Critics of high-tech churches contend that the big screens, flickering lights and Internet take away from the traditional atmosphere. They also say that some churches are using so much high technology that they look and feel more like entertainment venues than houses of worship.
“I feel like it’s too much and it takes over the worship,” said the Rev. Dorothy LaPenta, pastor of the 150-member Hope Presbyterian Church in Mitchellville, Md. “People will just be sitting there, their eyes fixated on the screen. They’re waiting to be given something instead of participating.”
Robert Defazio, 62, a member of her congregation, agrees. “If a minister is worth his salt, he is going to be able get the message across by what he says, not by what he shows,” he said. Statistics bear out the high-tech trend. Last year, churches spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection equipment, according to Texasbased TFCinfo, an audiovisual-market research firm. Today, 80 percent of churches integrate elaborate video and audio systems as well as an array of online materials into their worship services, and at least a dozen magazines cater to the high-tech pious.
Sixty percent of churches have a Web site, and more than half send bulk e-mails to their congregants, according to TFCinfo. Houses of worship often offer downloads of their services, and some send families recordings of special services involving their children. Central Synagogue in New York City mails CDs of bar and bat mitzvahs to its members, said executive director Livia Thompson.
Scholars and religious leaders say churches are ramping up their use of technology for a variety of reasons. Often, the leaders say, churches purchase sophisticated sound systems to accommodate elderly congregants. Projection devices are popular, too, for older people and those who find it easier to read lyrics and scriptures on a screen rather than from a hymnal or Bible.
But mostly, leaders are hoping all the hightech equipment will help draw more people to their pews and make their places of worship more interactive and user-friendly.
“Introduce a projection screen, Web sites, podcasts and an e-mail newsletter, and the church grows,” said Scott Thumma, a sociology professor at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut, which studies trends in American churches. “This is not church like your grandparents did it. This has something to say about life today.”
During a recent sermon at St. Paul’s Collegiate Church in Storrs, Conn., worshipers sent text messages to the cell phone of the lead pastor, Benjamin Dubow, the substance of which he then integrated into his sermon.
“Prayer is supposed to be a conversation,” Dubow said. “We did this to help people engage in the conversation live during the service.”
Carl Reeder, technology director at Reid Temple AME Church in Prince George’s, said high-tech equipment is a priority at his house of worship. The 6,000-member church has a state-of-the-art audio studio and a video production room that use the same equipment that major television stations use. Sixteen volunteer producers, directors and electricians operate the equipment for the church and reproduce its worship services on CDs and DVDs. Still, Reeder said his church is mindful of its mission. “We don’t want the technology to take over worshiping God,” he said. “If you misuse the technology, you lose focus.”
James Twitchell, an English professor at the University of Florida, cautions against having too much technology in church.
“One of the problems is that with video technology, you don’t watch the pastor, you watch the screen, where he appears like a movie star 20 times bigger than reality,” said Twitchell, author of the book “Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart to In Your Face.”
Thanks to technology, Twitchell added, even the old practice of writing a check or slipping cash into an envelope and dropping it into the tithing bowl is disappearing. “These churches use direct deposit, so there is none of that reaching into your pocket to get your money out,” he said.
There are other concerns about high-tech churches. Quentin Schultze, a communications professor at Calvin College in Michigan and author of the book “High-Tech Worship? Using Presentational Technologies Wisely,” contends that if not used properly, the fancy lighting and sound and audio systems can distract from the reasons for going to church.
“The congregation has to understand what worship is: dialogue,” Schultze said. “If technology is used as a crutch to create entertainment, that turns the congregation into consumers, and that’s deadly from a spiritual standpoint.”
TWO VIEWS
“I think God would be pleased with this. I don’t think that God would want us to try to evangelize like Jesus did 2,000 years ago.”
- REV. GRAINGER BROWNING JR., pastor of the 10,000-member Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington., Md.
“I feel like it’s too much and it takes over the worship. People will just be sitting there, their eyes fixated on the screen. They’re waiting to be given something instead of participating.”
- REV. DOROTHY LaPENTA, pastor of the 150-member Hope Presbyterian Church in Mitchellville, Md.
Organized religon is a MESS!
Of course, in churches with sacraments, all this is impossible. Or, if this kind of thing (use of recordings, projected videos, slide projectors, etc.) IS done, it is a gross liturgical abuse.
This is a poorly organized article. It conflates high-tech services and “worship” over the Internet with the use of modern technology to communicate with the congregation. I can understand why people would dislike services that combine a rock concert with a marketing presentation ... but that’s hardly the same as getting an e-mail from the office with a reminder that the youth group will be doing a service project on Thursday night!
You think that's bad, try joining a disorganized religion! :-)
That’s entertainment!
As a longtime media director for two churches, large and small, I have a few thoughts about this subject. Unfortunately, I have to run for now, so I will comment when I return.
We are a Lutheran - Missouri Synod church that uses a projector, but only to show the liturgy and the lyrics to the hymns. Very rarely, we will use a movie clip to illustrate a sermon - and I mean once a year.
Life church her in OKC has several locations. The preacher is at one of them..... the others just watch together via closed circuit television. And I mean groups of hundreds watching movie screen size television together in a “worship” service.
Please share your views. This article is not organized enough to draw conclusions.
Maybe Virgil and Catherine each wrote separate articles, and then the newpaper merged them together in alternating paragraphs.
There is no corporate worship in the New Testament.
“I think God would be pleased with this,” said the Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., pastor of the 10,000-member Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Md. “I don’t think that God would want us to try to evangelize like Jesus did 2,000 years ago.”
Or would he? Critics of high-tech churches contend that the big screens, flickering lights and Internet take away from the traditional atmosphere. They also say that some churches are using so much high technology that they look and feel more like entertainment venues than houses of worship.
Oh, for crying out loud. I'm sick of hearing people complain about change simply because it's change. Nothing stays the same forever. Change is usually for the better. In this case, this church is reaching more people through technology than without it. This is a good thing. If people are complaining about a camera and a projector in a church, I suspect they have their priorities screwed up.
As an LCMS'r myself, and a staunch supporter of traditional Liturgy and Hymnody, I find myself torn over the issue of large screens driven by PowerPoint. I have been to churches with such screens which were used to show the lyrics to hymns and order of worship. I found them quite helpful (much to my consternation) to my aging eyesight.
Exactly! No need for quiet contemplation, listening to God and your heart, listening to the joy and song of others. Just another 90 minute TV show without commercials.
Most of us can recite the liturgy from memory, but we have our Books of Common Prayer to refer to, as well as our Hymnals for the hymns. If extra material is required, such as when we recently began singing more of the liturgy, it's handed out on paper. Our main concession to "technology" is the wireless "baby monitor" used to transmit the service, and the sermon, to the nursery.
Certain special events have brought out cameras, but we are discussing methods for eliminating flashes.
Why don’t you have HYMNALS and MISSALS?
Well, he's on the right track, but a sermon isn't prayer- it's one guy talking to a roomful of listeners.
He's tapping into the impetus for the house church movement, though- people are sick of showing up, prepared to minister to others, and getting zero opportunity- since all the "real ministers" get to stand up on a stage with amped mics and instruments, and the order of service is very neatly scripted. So people get tired of being scripted into a charade, and leave. They would rather actually minister to someone in the real world, than the fake world of churchianity.
A little openness is good for spiritual development, and powerpoint, etc. doesn't help spontaneity.
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