LET US SING POWERPOINT SLIDE 2567

Well, I stuck my foot in it this time. Whether that means my mouth or something else is for you to decide. At a recent clergy meeting, one of the pastors remarked that they had stopped using bulletins and were using a screen instead. This means projecting words on large screen in a church. I just had to say that was too bad because now I wouldn’t be able to go to that church when I retire. I hate those screens in worship. It turns out most of the clergy present either used screens or wished they could or are planning to do so. This desire is in spite of the fact that many of the church’s members dislike the screens as much as I do. I guess this is one more sign that I am a dinosaur in the church. I suppose many are just waiting until I and my species become extinct so they can bring things up-to-date in the church.

Some of my objection to these screens replacing bulletins and hymnals and Bibles is practical. The durned screens are hard for us old fogies to read. I was at a service once where the “praise team” (that’s the neologism for combination worship leaders-musicians) blocked the screen on my side of the auditorium. I couldn’t read anything that was up there. When several of us mentioned this afterwards we were told out inability to read didn’t matter.  I got the sense that our participation was confined to listening rapturously to the praise team’s performance and putting enough cash into the offering plate to pay for the show.

The practical problem is compounded for musicians like me. When we sing something, we like to have the music with the words. We’ve spent a lot of time learning to read music, after all. The screens never have musical notes with the words. And nine times out of ten what we are singing is unknown to us. Once again it seems to me that we are being discouraged from participating.

And then there is the problem of making the technology work right. Computers crash bringing everything to a halt. Or somebody pushes the button at the wrong time and you’ve got the wrong words.

But I have a more deep seated objection to the screens. They are out of place in church, at least churches with a liturgical tradition. Liturgy means the people’s work. It assumes that worship is something that worshipers do as active participants and not passive spectators. As best as I can determine, the use of projection screens for song lyrics first arose in mega-churches which are designed to look and function like theatres. As a matter of fact, it was in theaters as far back as magic lantern shows that words were projected for sing-a-longs. Even I seem to recall a projected version of “Let me call you Sweetheart” being sung in some auditorium with the words projected on a screen. Now as I learned from the book When Church Became Theatre there has been a 200 year tradition in American Protestantism of designing churches like theaters culminating in Willow Creek Church. There is absolutely nothing in that church to make it look like a place of Christian worship. It is devoid of Christian symbols or altar or anything that would suggest a traditional church. Projection screens are a natural for these settings which seemed to be aimed at entertaining or perhaps teaching, but certainly not worship in a context where the Word and Sacrament are central and worship really is the people’s work and not the paid staff’s work.

The picture at the head of this blog shows what happens when a screen is thumped into a liturgical church. The stained glass window is covered over and the altar and cross are overwhelmed. Frankly, it is an eyesore rather than an aid to worship. The screen becomes the focal point.


It’s worth paying attention to the observations of Marshall McLuhan in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. A medium affects society not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. In other words, what is communicated is the video screen itself, not what’s on the screen. What is the effect of putting our song lyrics on the ephemeral medium of  a projection screen? As soon as the image changes to a new lyric, the previous one has vanished, disappeared into cyber space. And what about putting Bible texts up there. At least with a book in your hands or even a piece of paper you can go back over something. But with the screen, it is gone in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for . . ."  Oops! File deleted.

How different is that from a book that will last 20 years or more? Isn’t it strange that we can read manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls written 2,000 years ago, but the information from the 1960 census is largely unavailable because no modern computer can read the old data formats. I can sing the songs I learned in Sunday School and choir 50 years ago. They are lodged in my memory. I can pick up a hymnal prepared in 1960 and sing anything written there. Anybody out there got a collection of songs on eight-track?  How about a good movie on Betamax?

A good screen and projector would be a wonderful adjunct in teaching, but as a worship aid it may prove counter productive. I think churches are being sold a technological bill of goods. I’m not buying.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






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