If you happen to venture into a larger church facility for worship, you probably expect that the pastor or worship leader will be wearing a microphone. You'll also have speakers which convey that voice around the sanctuary so that the speaker can be heard throughout, and perhaps those speakers are also wired in to whatever musical instrument is being used for the music of the worship service.
Most of us would hardly blink an eye at this kind of technology. We see the rationale for making use of it, and, for the most part, adopt it whole-heartedly. It just makes sense, and it doesn't seem to detract from what happens during our worship times (except for those times when it chooses not to work!).
However, throw up a screen and a projection system, and suddenly, there are many who would say that you have crossed the line. I've heard some of the arguments against such technology in a worship setting, and I've heard some of the arguments for such technology. But it seems that, where sound technology is viewed as good and right, sight technology is a much more mixed bag.
I've thought long and hard on this, and I understand a bit of both sides of the argument. When you have sight technology like screens and projectors, the "entertainment" factor of seeing images that are intended to add meaning to the message can easily slip into the object to which people pay attention. Images that enhance the message being proclaimed are good. Images that become the focal point instead of the message are not so good.
And yet, much research has been done to demonstrate that we humans tend to be visual and sound learners. When you only hear something talked about, you retain a fairly small percentage of what you heard. When you see something, you retain a higher percentage. When you both see and hear, you retain almost 80% of what you see and hear!
The reason that this is so controversial to many is that it seems that the technology is taking the place of the Holy Spirit and His work. If we rely upon the technology to bring about change in the life and faith of those who gather, then we have gone too far. That is something that the Bible says only the Holy Spirit can do. Only the Holy Spirit can create and nurture faith.
At the same time, it's also important that we remember and take to heart the things we see and hear during our worship times. While the Holy Spirit works as the words are heard, if we leave the worship time and really take nothing away with us, sure, our faith may have been strengthened while we listened, but the Holy Spirit is also about transforming our lives. If we hear and walk away unchanged, well, the Bible says that is a pretty futile thing.
So I close with this thought today. When Jesus was speaking many of His parables, it's likely that there were some of those very objects around as He spoke. For example, as He gave the parable of the sower, one can almost picture a man with his bag of seed, tossing it into the ground. The listeners could hear Jesus talk about the seed that landed on the path, or among the rocks, and see the sower in the distance, knowing that those same things were happening over there. That image would help the story and its meaning stick with them even better than if Jesus had just spoken to them in a sterile environment.
I also was reading a book written by one of my seminary professors recently (That I May Be His Own, by Dr. Charles Arand), who talked about the reason that Martin Luther included woodcuts in his catechisms. The purpose of the woodcuts was to enable people to better remember what they were learning. Luther basically asserted that we people remember better when we have something to see that ties in with what we are learning, and that we should adopt these kind of things to better enhance our learning.
It seems that images and teaching/preaching are made to fit together. Of course, you always have to be cautious that the image doesn't overwhelm the message, but when the image(s) enhance the message and make it more memorable, then, it seems, we have hit upon something that fits with how God made us as humans.
Most of us would hardly blink an eye at this kind of technology. We see the rationale for making use of it, and, for the most part, adopt it whole-heartedly. It just makes sense, and it doesn't seem to detract from what happens during our worship times (except for those times when it chooses not to work!).
However, throw up a screen and a projection system, and suddenly, there are many who would say that you have crossed the line. I've heard some of the arguments against such technology in a worship setting, and I've heard some of the arguments for such technology. But it seems that, where sound technology is viewed as good and right, sight technology is a much more mixed bag.
I've thought long and hard on this, and I understand a bit of both sides of the argument. When you have sight technology like screens and projectors, the "entertainment" factor of seeing images that are intended to add meaning to the message can easily slip into the object to which people pay attention. Images that enhance the message being proclaimed are good. Images that become the focal point instead of the message are not so good.
And yet, much research has been done to demonstrate that we humans tend to be visual and sound learners. When you only hear something talked about, you retain a fairly small percentage of what you heard. When you see something, you retain a higher percentage. When you both see and hear, you retain almost 80% of what you see and hear!
The reason that this is so controversial to many is that it seems that the technology is taking the place of the Holy Spirit and His work. If we rely upon the technology to bring about change in the life and faith of those who gather, then we have gone too far. That is something that the Bible says only the Holy Spirit can do. Only the Holy Spirit can create and nurture faith.
At the same time, it's also important that we remember and take to heart the things we see and hear during our worship times. While the Holy Spirit works as the words are heard, if we leave the worship time and really take nothing away with us, sure, our faith may have been strengthened while we listened, but the Holy Spirit is also about transforming our lives. If we hear and walk away unchanged, well, the Bible says that is a pretty futile thing.
So I close with this thought today. When Jesus was speaking many of His parables, it's likely that there were some of those very objects around as He spoke. For example, as He gave the parable of the sower, one can almost picture a man with his bag of seed, tossing it into the ground. The listeners could hear Jesus talk about the seed that landed on the path, or among the rocks, and see the sower in the distance, knowing that those same things were happening over there. That image would help the story and its meaning stick with them even better than if Jesus had just spoken to them in a sterile environment.
I also was reading a book written by one of my seminary professors recently (That I May Be His Own, by Dr. Charles Arand), who talked about the reason that Martin Luther included woodcuts in his catechisms. The purpose of the woodcuts was to enable people to better remember what they were learning. Luther basically asserted that we people remember better when we have something to see that ties in with what we are learning, and that we should adopt these kind of things to better enhance our learning.
It seems that images and teaching/preaching are made to fit together. Of course, you always have to be cautious that the image doesn't overwhelm the message, but when the image(s) enhance the message and make it more memorable, then, it seems, we have hit upon something that fits with how God made us as humans.
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