We have two categories when it comes to our experience in a worship service: presentation or participation. Singing is participation; the sermon is presentation. Communion is participation; media is presentation. As worship leaders, we feel the burden of expectation to keep everything very balanced. Too much presentation and you create a “performance,” but erring on the side of too many participatory elements leaves worship services feeling very one-dimensional.
Media pioneer William Bernbach was once quoted as saying, “In this very real world, good doesn’t drive out evil. Evil doesn’t drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.” We are a people who crave engagement, who look for opportunities to enter into a story that’s bigger than we are. Think of the best movie you’ve ever seen. My guess is that the power of experience wasn’t simply in its presentation, but in the movie’s ability to draw you into the plot and make it your story. Watching a movie that grabs hold of one’s heart and mind can change one’s stance from uninvolved observer to passionate advocate. Videos and images can provide windows into common human experiences.
Our community worship is the act of gathering together to retell the scandalous and mysterious story of our shared human experience encountering the living, redeeming God. We have at our disposal visual art, media, proclamation, prose, and music. Yet one of the greatest problems I hear worship leaders confess is that we often use our media elements to get a point across instead of crafting a story where media is plays an essential role in the storytelling. I don’t know if there is any other device available to us that has more power to either reinforce our culture of “feed me, move me, give me” as worshippers or radically shift our paradigm to something bigger, something transformative. But here’s the thing—we have to join together to begin this subtle but monumental shift in our worship thinking.
Media has the great potential to move worship from passive personal experience into energetic community participation. It can create an atmosphere where images, sounds, and texts come to life and draw all of us into God’s story of relationship, devastation, reconciliation, and the journey of redemption. Standalone presentations do not change people, but participation and experience incubate transformation. Media moves from presentation to participation when it draws us together in worship that’s not just about me and God or you and God, but about God, us, and them—in the past, present, and even in the future As worship leaders and video creators, we are artists and storytellers. That is where we must begin—with the creation of media that fosters participation.
Crafting the Story
I know, this is fabulously idealistic and beautiful in theory, but how does it work? Isn’t transformative worship what we’ve been trying to create all this time? Of course—but let’s reframe our questions. The first question is “Why do we use media in our services?” There are the obvious and pragmatic answers, most of which deal with presentation (i.e., displaying song lyrics, creating ambiance, and so forth). I would invite you to take the question deeper and ask yourself: As storytellers, why do we use media in worship?
Once we dive into that ocean of possibilities, then our next question becomes “Where do we use media?” During a meditation? As a transition? For Communion’s special music? Sure, but if we keep asking ourselves the overarching question about our purposes for media, then the opportunities present themselves much differently. We need to rethink using media only in the absence of something else to look at or think about (which is presentational thinking). To provoke participation with media, we need to continually search for creative ways to use media at different points in the worship service.
The third question is “How do we use media?” In many ways, this question gets answered for us by virtue of where we are worshipping, our volunteer force, and our budget constraints; but this is probably the area where it is the most fun—and most necessary—to think outside the worship box. Creative “how-thinking” doesn’t require a big-church budget or a giant media team, but it may require some mental and physical re-arranging and some collaboration among creative people.
Anticipating Transformation
The post-modern generation and the post-congregational mindset are growing increasingly cynical about contemporary worship formulas where one train car of elements follows the next—and these people lead the pack in moving away from the back and forth of presentation and participation. In turn, the growing return to ancient/future worship appeals to us all to return to a holistic worship ideology where the elements and the dialogue—both horizontal and vertical—are a beautiful ebb and flow of ancient story and community participation. Media holds a unique position in the mix of elements because it can engage so much of our imagination, intellect, emotional space, and those common human tensions.
If we want worship to transform us and our communities—if we want media to be a powerful part of the story—what should we try to accomplish? If our only goal is to move people emotionally, than perhaps we are engaged only in a well-intended type of manipulation. If we want to be transformed and be a part in the transformation of our churches, then we must grab hold of our humanity in holistic and experiential ways and dive into God’s story of reconciliation—and all this via art and story.
Presentations may speak to us, but participation invites us in. Worship is our invitation into a spiritual community engaged in a divine encounter. Let’s keep telling that story. And let’s keep pushing ourselves toward media that welcomes others into participation by asking the important why, where, and how questions.
Jodi Adams is a teacher, author, and visionary for community worship. She has served as a worship pastor in an emergent church setting and now serves a number of Denver-area churches as a consultant and teacher, working to equip worship leaders for transformative worship. Jodi is a contributor to GiftedforLeadership.com and speaks regularly on the convergence of cultural issues and worship. In 2006, she began the Stained Glass Project as a forum for worship leaders and pastors who are seeking community and new frameworks for worship conversations. She and her husband live in Denver with their three children and with Karma the Wonder Dog.
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