Screening our Screens
Ever since joining a good Baptist church here in Louisville, I have grown accustomed to corporate singing via the Sunday Service bulletin and Baptist Hymnal. In the Chinese church I grew up in Toronto, both the Cantonese and English worship services have completely reverted to the video screen instead of using hymnals or lyrics printed in the bulletin. In fact, my home church was built for digital projection — on the left side of the stage and high on the wall, there sits a built-in rear projection screen for which a LCD/DLP digital projector displays videos and lyrics for corporate worship. It’s truly a massive screen, on which secular movies have even been played for “fellowship times”.
However, now having transitioned to Southern Seminary, I am actually becoming very blessed through having to read and sing the lyrics as printed in the bulletin and the hymnal. That is how worship music is lead during Chapel services at SBTS, and that is how songs are lead at my local church. (I have visited SEBTS, but they have unfortunately forsaken the bulletin/hymnal method for the video screen.) The inconvenience of being tied to holding a bulletin/hymnal in one hand while struggling to raise the other in praise, is outweighed by the benefits of being able to slowly absorb the lyrics of each and every verse of the songs. Whereas video screens foster the entertainment-driven display of words in small tidbits that appear and disappear in a matter of seconds, having the entire text of songs in hand allows worshipers to learn and reflect on the lyrics better — at the service and at home (with the bulletin). This is something that cannot be done as effectively through our screen-prone generation, for lyrics don’t stay in view for any long period of time.
Don’t get me wrong — I am not in favor of completely abolishing the use of screens in corporate worship. I am, however, very concerned at how illiterate our congregations have become in terms of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. From worshiping through bulletins and hymnals, I have begun to learn classic hymns of the church that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to learn.
Along with biblical illiteracy, worshipers today only see the lyrics of the traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs for a few seconds at a time. Sunday morning for many is the only time they will ever see the lyrics of the songs they offer to God, and using screens only adds to hymn illiteracy. There is a time and place for using projection screens, like for special church events and conferences. The weekly Sunday service, on the other hand, should be especially saturated with Scripture: reading Scripture, praying Scripture, meditating on Scripture, as well as singing Scripture. What better way to teach our church the songs that have transformed generations past than through putting those words in their hands? Even in those unique times of corporate gathering, I think it’s still best to have the lyrics printed in the event/conference handbook for worshipers to use as they please, and to provide them to our people for further meditation.
In a recent article at Biblical Worship.com, Dr. Greg Brewton, Associate Professor of Church Music at Southern Seminary, references some dangers that Powerpoint have for our churches. While the article that he quotes pertains specifically to Powerpoint, the points made are true for all uses of video screens in corporate worship:
1. The use of PowerPoint promotes a kind of cognitive style that routinely disrupts, dominates and trivializes content.
2. PowerPoint elevates format over content. It produces a ’stacking’ of information, the relentless sequentiality that divorces content from context.
3. Hymns (or other worship songs) are only seen in short fragments at a time. How will our children learn to read a hymn as it is printed on the page - as well as learn to read music - a dying practice much due to video screen technology?
4. PowerPoint conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian.
5. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention - an object of fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they begin to worry that it will malfunction again.
6. PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them: they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen.
7. PowerPoint sets up a competition between what’s projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. It’s a contest that PowerPoint will always win because when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening.
8. PowerPoint contributes to sensory overload when something is happening on the platform and something different on the screen at the same time. It can manipulate emotions and stifle imagination.
Maybe it’s time for us to examine how appropriate and positive the use of video screens are for our church. If they are fostering an emotional, adrenaline high in music that is not grounded in the foundation of Scripture, maybe it is doing more harm than good. For if we have become so distracted and fascinated by what is on screen than by God Himself, then we must see this as a sign from the Lord: we need to start screening our screens.
Dani
That’s very interesting… excellent points.
Jan 23, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
Tim Ng
These are almost all design considerations. That is, with proper design, many of these problems can be eliminated. The problem is that most people who prepare the slides don’t design them properly.
Jan 24, 2008 @ 1:30 am
Nathan
This is the only good article I have ever read/heard for not switching to screens and keeping hymnals instead.
However, upon closer examination, I have easily found holes in each of the 8 points quoted here in this blog.
1. The use of PowerPoint promotes a kind of cognitive style that routinely disrupts, dominates and trivializes content.
So do hymnals. Everyone having to shuffle through the pages to find the current hymn can take enough time to be distracting. Also, I can’t stand it when the music director starts singing even though it’s obvious half of us haven’t found the place in our hymnals yet. Screens and bulletins (i will admit)solve this problem.
2. PowerPoint elevates format over content. It produces a ’stacking’ of information, the relentless sequentiality that divorces content from context.
I don’t understand how this is possible. Especially since hymnals and bulletins give you TOO MUCH information all at once. Screens streamline it and make it easier for the brain to receive.
I will give you that it is true that when the words disappear they are easily forgotten and harder to soak in. That is probably the only strong argument against using screens.
3. Hymns (or other worship songs) are only seen in short fragments at a time. How will our children learn to read a hymn as it is printed on the page - as well as learn to read music - a dying practice much due to video screen technology?
Dude, reading music was dead long before powerpoint. I grew up on just hymnals and I still can’t read a lick of music. Children learn to read a hymn by learning to read, period. That’s This is an absurd argument, the more I think about it.
4. PowerPoint conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian.
I’m sorry, you’re referencing an atheistic philosophy as support for your argument? Behaviorism is a false philsophy in any context, including a worship service. Besides, even if it were true, I have no idea what kind of powerpoint program controls people’s behavior. Must be a Mac.
5. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention - an object of fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they begin to worry that it will malfunction again.
Why should the altar or the cross become the center of attention? That’s icon worship. Putting the words on screen actually reduces the temptation to worship an icon (nobody I know worships the screen they sing from, but take that cross out of the sanctuary and oh boy you have a fight on your hands!) Besides, who looks at the cross when they are reading a hymnal? Oh that’s right the same people who look at a cross while reading a screen- which is no one, because they’re reading the words, not looking at the cross.
Malfunction happens with hymnals too- when the song leader gives the wrong number or when, in the case of a bulletin, there is a misprint.
6. PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them: they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen.
Actually, the opposite is true. Burying your face in a hymnal is what reduces eye contact and awareness. Lifting your head up and facing forward (where you can see others) encourages congregational awareness, not discourages it. The only case where you are right about this is when they dim the lights in order to “see the screen better”. Simple solution to that- don’t dim the lights.
7. PowerPoint sets up a competition between what’s projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. It’s a contest that PowerPoint will always win because when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening.
There is some truth to this. But, it can work just in much in favor of more God-centered worship as against. It reduces that “performance” mentality that singers/preachers tend to have when people are watching them. So, less focus on the person, MORE focus on the content. But, I concede it’s a trade-off- one I don’t seen being better either way.
8. PowerPoint contributes to sensory overload when something is happening on the platform and something different on the screen at the same time. It can manipulate emotions and stifle imagination.
Uhh.. so what? There has to be room for human error and this would obviously be a case of the people on stage not getting their cues right or being an unnecessary distraction.
So, out of the eight points here, only two of them are semi-convincing to me.
Another observation: Hymnals (books) are a part of technology just as screens are. They are just lo-tech. If we really wanted to be “Biblical” we would read hymns from scrolls or just memorize them like they did in the early church. So, although I think it is good to analyze a current technological trend, to see if it enhances human contact and enhances a genuine worship experience, I don’t think these arguments are strong enough to make a stand against screen use over book/bulletin use.
Jan 24, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Nathan
“Even in those unique times of corporate gathering, I think it’s still best to have the lyrics printed in the event/conference handbook for worshipers to use as they please, and to provide them to our people for further meditation.”
I whole-heartedly agree with this statement and will strongly consider doing this in the next church I pastor.
Jan 24, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Alex S. Leung
Thanks for all your comments, gentlemen. As noted, there are positives and negatives for using powerpoint/video screens. There certainly are dangers in the over-use of modern tools that are supposed to aid our Gospel proclamation.
When we carefully “tame” our use of such technology with discernment, I am sure that video screens & lyrics presentation software do have a place in the church. (And of course, this includes training our powerpoint slide ppl to design our slides better.)
Jan 24, 2008 @ 9:38 pm