For many churches, the primary use of screens in worship is to display song lyrics and Scripture. Creativity in these situations means upgrading an old gradient background for a nice nature shot, a treatment of an ancient icon, a “Holy Blob of Color,” or a heavily textured mash-up of organic material.
What do all of these examples have in common? Text.
Most churches have screens, but we treat them like a giant piece of paper. Over the last decade we have gotten quite sophisticated, but much of what we do visually in worship is still wrapped in data-driven empiricism. Our text-oriented mindsets were formed in the aftermath of the Renaissance and forged by the printing press: the major advancement in communication technology. This mindset prevents us from effectively reaching our target audience, churched and unchurched alike.
The issue is not the technological vessel by which we proclaim the Word. Instead, the issue is the language we employ. While we as the Church continue to embrace a modern-era epistemology formed by the mass-printed word, the culture around us has shed that language in favor of a new one. We may employ the latest advancements in digital technology, such as HD projectors and screens, but we often do a poor job of using them to create meaning for what has become a visual culture.
Visual communication invokes a different kind of thinking than three-point analysis of Scripture passages. Whereas text in worship, as a byproduct of the Age of Reason, is prone to reducing meaning to alliterated words that we jot down on a bulletin and forget, effective use of image and narrative invites exploration through multiple interpretations. Image invokes mystery and wonder and expands our understanding of God. When image is a part of experiential narrative, image engages our culture more fully than mere text. The Church still wants to analyze, deconstruct, and study; the world to which we minister wants to experience, explore, and do.
In the 13th century, Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis, argued that art did more than just illustrate—art is primarily narrative in nature. He said the scriptural text is self-sufficient in its ecclesiastical function; the duty of art is to provide a different, experiential means of approaching the gospel.
Consider the marketing industry. The most recent generation of advertisers have led the move from text to image. Entire ad campaigns are designed and executed around images while the sum total of text associated with an ad is a catchy slogan or tagline. The informational, text-based, “features and benefits” approach of the past has been replaced by an experience-based approach that relies on image to tell stories that engage the viewer. Viewers are invited into engaging visual experiences that, when executed effectively, create a lasting impression. The experience engages the viewer and remains with him or her long after the ad is out of sight.
Of course, we proclaimers of the gospel have a message different from consumerism, yet if we want to be heard and understood in a way that is transformative, our mindset must change. To simply speak the words of the gospel, or to print them, does not acknowledge the language of our new world (even if we put them in a cool font on a nice grungy background). We may have created something attractive on our screen, but it’s still just a giant piece of paper.
There is great power in letting an image speak for itself. Effective use can initiate incredible growth and transformation in a church’s culture and in the lives of individuals who are assimilated into the culture at large. The screen can be a catalyst to adopting styles of worship that are more indigenous to our visual culture and that connect with our communities in fresh, missional ways.
Although the two of us—Jason and Len—design worship at separate congregations now, prior to starting Midnight Oil we designed worship on a weekly basis together at Ginghamsburg Church in Ohio. On one particular Sunday, our senior pastor Mike Slaughter went home after a morning of worship and was drawn to a full-page car ad in his newspaper. That is, until he was convicted by a picture depicting a famine in Africa on the opposite page. The next weekend, he asked the congregation, “How often are we more focused on the sedans than the Sudan?” We displayed the image below with his tag line. We didn’t feel the need to deconstruct and explain. We let the juxtaposition speak for itself.
The image had such a powerful effect on the congregation that they began to develop a ministry focused on the needs of Sudan. In recent years, the church has delivered millions of dollars in aid and development to the country.
The strength and weakness of text is its ability to facilitate detached and precise analysis. The strengths and weaknesses of image is its ambiguity; its ability to provoke multiple interpretations and meanings; its invitation to experience through surprise, provocation, and intrigue. Each engages the mind and the heart in different fashions. Each spurs the imagination in unique ways. Each—text and image—need to be present in worship to best communicate the gospel to the culture in which we live.
So even as we continue to use text in worship, how do we really learn to use image? We’re talking about more than nice backgrounds here. We’re talking about image that carries powerful gospel meaning. Communicating the gospel visually is not a nice addition you can implement one afternoon between emails. It necessitates learning a new language.
Mastery and acceptance of new mediums go hand in hand. It is easy to dismiss examples that are of poor quality, as anyone who has suffered the slings and arrows of early attempts at media in church can attest. Resistance may be futile, but it is quite normal and born out of lack of vision.
In 600 BC, the use of alphabets to write things down was cutting edge, yet ambivalence was high for this new technology. It seems ludicrous in the age of Google, but from their oral tradition, Socrates and Plato argued writing would produce forgetfulness and only a semblance of wisdom but not truth. At the time, they couldn’t grasp the potential of the new medium, but eventually, we learn how to effectively use a new technology to communicate, and that is when we begin to truly understand the potential of the new technology.
When films began to be produced at the turn of the last century, filmmakers only knew how to tell a story on stage. They literally created stage plays on celluloid, placing the tripod in the best seat of the house—seventh row back, center stage—and rolled film while actors entered and exited. The first auteur was the unknown filmmaker who decided to move the tripod on stage and get a close-up. What an idea! This marriage of the new form and content takes years to develop.
After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, an aging Alfred Hitchcock praised a young Steven Spielberg. “He’s the first one of us who doesn’t see the proscenium arch,” Hitchcock observed. In other words, 70 years after the invention of film, Spielberg was the first mainstream director to think outside the spatial dynamics of the theater.
The problem is, we are well versed in text-based communication, but we know very little about visual communication. In spite of our nice fonts and backgrounds, we’re just getting started with visual communication in worship.
So how do we begin to use screens visually? In the case of the opening example, rather than show the text of the story of Philip on the road to Jerusalem, why not use the screen as a visual backdrop for the spoken word? While the pastor reads the Scripture passage, the screen sets the scene, creating a theater of the mind and immersing people in the story.
Of course, people can follow along in their own Bibles if they prefer. As worship designers we’ve created oral, written, and visual versions of the same story, all working together in an experience of God.
While it may indeed take generations for visual worship to mature, we can make great strides in our own efforts by understanding two critical keys, both of which are at play in image of the road to Jerusalem. There’s a lot to say, but we’re out of space. Thus, we’ll address these keys in an upcoming COLLIDE article. Stay tuned!
Len Wilson and Jason Moore have been described as the Wright brothers of visual imagery in contemporary worship. The two best friends are pioneering artists and communicators for the Church, and they have authored several books, including Taking Flight with Creativity (Abingdon 2009). Also, the two are frequent seminar leaders on the topics of creativity, worship, teams, and the visual arts. Jason and Len are co-owners of Midnight Oil Productions, an equipping ministry to help congregations connect with our digital culture. They serve as adjunct professors in Northwest Nazarene Univeristy’s School of Theology. Jason designs worship at Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio, and Len serves as Creative Director at Trietsch Memorial UMC in Flower Mound, Texas.