New Media for a New Culture

Simply adding digital media is not the end of the story. If done poorly, it can undermine the worship experience. There is a big difference between technology and culture. Limiting the screen’s use to song lyrics, sermon points and scripture verses will not make much of a difference at all. With new media must come new mindsets. The screen is a visual medium, and text on the screen must play a small part. That’s why metaphor, storytelling, drama and video are so important. Each must be incorporated to sew visual threads throughout the service into the hearts of worshipers. Effective media that incorporates metaphor can help people carry the message outside of worship into their daily lives.

Recently we produced a 30-second Easter video called “Beyond the Tomb” and offered it as a free download from our website. Over 5300 total churches from around the world downloaded it. Here’s some of the feedback we received:

It is awesome…..powerful….relevant. It ran perfectly. The message Pastor preached on was “Out of The Tomb.” We used the images that matched up with sermon, ran the clip again later during a special song time, and just ran the clip for background with no audio as the song “What Kind of Man?” played. Together it was powerful and truly experiential.
-Helen Foster, First UMC, Lawrenceville, IL

We used the Easter video at the beginning of our worship service. We are a new start-up, so we currently worship in a school cafeteria. We set it up so as people entered, we had candles lit and incense burning, but the lights were out and Gregorian chant was playing in the background (this is out of the norm for us). Then, to begin we had the Markan version of the crucifixion read from the back, finishing with the words “with a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.” At that the video was played. At the place where the stone begins to crack open our Praise Band kicked in with a amped up version of “He lives”, the lights were kicked on and our Easter celebration began. The video was a fantastic focal and transition point for us to move from the darkness of crucifixion to the joy of resurrection.
-Chris Schmidt, A Community of Hope Church, New Port Richey, FL

Using digital media in worship is not a trend to adopt for the sake of church growth, attempted relevance to our culture and youth, or even hymnal and bulletin replacement. It is becoming a structural part of the communications means by which worship is experienced today, as much as any other form of communications has been appropriated in our long history as a Church. To ignore it is to refuse to proclaim the Gospel in our present and future time.

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