Technology is like a teenager: rapidly changing, sometimes frustrating, and full of potential. Lynne Baab, a lecturer in pastoral theology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is interested in helping the church and technology get along. She is the author of several books, including Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites, which was picked this year by Christianity Today as a top five book for Lent, and most recently Reaching Out in a Networked World (The Alban Institute, 2008). BCL’s Rachel Willoughby spoke with her–across several time zones–about visual literacy and using technology in church.
As you talked to church leaders, what were some common fears that they expressed about technology in the church?
Probably the biggest fear is that online relationships aren’t real–that the only thing that matters in terms of relationships is face-to-face communication. One of the funny things I learned while working on my PhD was that when the telephone came into use during the early 1900s, the exact same fears were expressed. People thought that the telephone was going to ruin real relationships. If you’ve ever lived far away from people that you love, the telephone is a huge and wonderful way to stay in touch. Yes, the telephone can interrupt dinner at the wrong hour and disrupt relationships if it rings and someone goes to answer it when they should really stay talking with the person that they’re in the same room with. But by and large, telephones have been a blessing with a few complications.
That’s what I always want to say to people in ministry about the online world. Real relationships can be nurtured through e-mails, through connections on social networking sites, through information that’s given by websites. Nobody who advocates the use of these methods of communication is saying that people should spend all their time online, but real relationships can be nurtured.
In your book Reaching Out in a Networked World you talk about visual literacy–learning to read what images and fonts and graphics are communicating unintentionally to people who view them. What might a church’s website be communicating unintentionally to visitors?
Many things. Fonts are a good example. They have personalities–not the basic, plain ones–but many of the decorative fonts do. They might be quirky or they might be casual or they might be elegant, so it’s important to use those fonts carefully to be sure that the font communicates what the words are saying. That’s one place where miscommunication happens.
Another place is in the photos. Let’s say a congregation is very proud of its building, and the only photo on the church’s homepage is one of the building. Is that really what the congregation wants to communicate–that their building is the most important thing? Lots of churches have cool buildings and maybe there should be a photo of the building somewhere on the homepage, but if what is central in a congregation is the relationships between the people or the intergenerational ministry that’s done on mission trips or the worship service–well, a photo of that, whatever that main thing is, should be on the homepage.
Links communicate a lot as well. If all of your links are to things within your congregation, you inadvertently communicate that you’re not engaged with the wider community. If all your links are to activities that only a member would want to be engaged in, then you’re inadvertently communicating that you don’t welcome new people. If you want to welcome new people, then you need some links on the homepage to activities where people can get easily involved.
So it’s really significant to look over a website with the various audiences in mind and make sure that there’s no inadvertent communication.
How would a pastor or church leader who wanted to be intentional about how they’re presenting the church in websites or brochures–how would they learn to be visually literate? Is it enough for them to be aware that they need to be intentional?
I think visual literacy for most Protestant Christians is going to be something that takes us the rest of our lives to learn. It’s not easy. It’s not something that we automatically understand because we’ve been raised to believe that words are the most important thing. Words are hugely important. Words provide anchors for photos and visual images. Words give concrete instructions that visual images can’t, but we need to look at visual literacy as a skill to learn over the years to come.
Here are some things that people can do: thumb through a magazine and look at the pictures and think about how each picture affects you. Look at the websites of the churches of all your friends and think about the impression each homepage gives you. Look at the websites of big corporations and organizations–maybe the symphony in your city or the city council–and look at the way they present themselves. Think about the way the visual components work together. Watch TV advertisements without the sound on and pay attention to the way the visual images work–watch what they communicate.
These are just a few examples of ways to increase visual literacy. It’s going to be a long, long journey for most of us because we haven’t been trained in it.
For more on websites …
