	:: This section of our website invites churhes within the Shenandoah Presbytery to submit and share examples of how they use media in their worship.
	Our goal is to present to our churches successful templates that can be personalized and used in their specific ministry.

Using Media in Worship

Worship With New Media: Part 1

By Len Wilson and Jason Moore

Some churches claim technology is transforming their congregations, fueling growth and strengthening their church communities. But how pervasive is it, and is it a fad or something that is an enduring part of our worship landscape? What are the theological considerations? Is it only for large churches with resources? And if new media is introduced in worship, what form does it take, exactly?

Church use of new media - technology such as projection systems and computers - has been a growing worship phenomenon in the past five years. Congregations across the globe are using new media on a weekly basis, and it is having a profound effect on their ministries. Whereas community-style churches have been using this kind of worship for a generation or more, interest in its use has spread throughout mainline denominations, including The United Methodist Church. Some claim the technology is transforming their churches, fueling growth and strengthening their church communities. But how pervasive is it, and is it a fad or something that is an enduring part of our worship landscape? What are the theological considerations? Is it only for large churches with resources? And if new media is introduced in worship, what form does it take, exactly?

In the last five years, many churches have moved from the "thinking about it" category to "have it, want to do it better." There is much more anecdotal than statistical information on the matter, but recent research conducted by Stephen Koster at Michigan State University has shown a sharp increase in the use of what he calls "visual media technology" in worship, from 16 percent of Christian churches in the United States in 2000 to more than 50 percent in 2003. Even more churches are seriously considering adding the technology to their services.

There are many examples illustrating how the use of new media has led to growth. Often, these are seeker-oriented, mega-church models. Fellowship Church of Grapevine, Texas, a congregation with roots in the Southern Baptist Convention, began in a small office complex with about 150 in attendance in 1990. Almost from the beginning, the congregation has used media as an integral part of its weekly worship experience. In the first year alone, it had to move into a new 750-seat facility, and attendance quickly grew to more than 3,000. The congregation now has more than 18,000 in attendance each week. Every worship service is designed with video, graphics, lighting, drama, cutting-edge music and relevant preaching in mind. One of the core purposes is to reach out to people who do not attend church.

But while new media has been closely associated with non-denominational churches and the "praise and worship" movement, this also is changing rapidly. The use of screens is now occurring in churches of all traditions and with worship styles as varied as "contemporary," "traditional," and "postmodern."

At Community Church in Jackson Heights, N.Y., Dr. Ronald Tompkins, a United Methodist pastor, also has experienced the fruits of sharing the message through new media. His church has four primary language groups that come together to experience worship in a community of 150 language groups. The screen has helped that congregation break down the barriers that speaking different languages creates. The congregation creates what Tompkins has called "wordless worship" by using imagery to make biblical connections. Art and technology help the church transcend the boundaries that exist in its complex situation.

More churches of all sizes and styles have discovered that the use of new media is much more than a fad, or even a trend, but a fundamental way in which our culture communicates - as powerful as the printing press has been to the modern era.

This is not only a large church phenomenon. Whether urban or rural, small and medium-sized churches across the country are approaching worship design with new media in mind. New developments include a further drop in the price of technology and the rise of ministries that produce new media resources and training for churches who can’t afford a dedicated media staff position.

Kent Wilson is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Willard, Ohio. He began incorporating media into worship in 1998 on a weekly basis. Based on his congregation’s success at integrating media in a small church, Wilson has become a sought-after seminar leader across Ohio, where he leads conferences and workshops incorporating examples of his own congregation’s weekly worship productions.

Some argue that new media somehow hinders the ability to form community in worship. The exact opposite is true. The screen allows us to join together in experiences that may not be possible through any other form. Using the personal story of someone in the congregation as a testimony video can help us connect with them, and with others around us. Videos like that create a forum for sharing.

Congregations Liven Sunday

Worship With New Media: Part 2

By Len Wilson and Jason Moore

Church use of new media - technology such as projection systems and computers - has been a growing worship phenomenon in the past five years. Whereas community-style churches have been using this kind of worship for a generation or more, interest in its use has spread throughout mainline denominations, including the United Methodist Church. Last month, UMC.org began exploring this trend with the first installment of a two-part series. This month, we conclude our series by addressing this trend�s theological implications. Read part one of this series.

(UMCom) -- Some argue the use of new media in worship creates a "production," that it just entertains, that it is shallow or "dumbs down," that it requires churches to abandon their traditions, or (mostly) that it just requires too many people and money resources. Those fearful of change may find that the move is less about breaking traditions and more about finding new ways to communicate them. This is exactly what Jesus addresses in his parable of new wine and old wineskins in Matthew 9:16-17. Old skins, filled with new wine, will burst. The wine, or the message, needs to be presented in a new communication form that won't break down before it gets to the eyes and ears of those who hear it.

The use of new media in worship is vital to our dominant digital culture because it fits with how the Gospel always has been communicated. Jesus' use of story and parable in the first century fits with popular culture's use of new media to communicate in story and metaphor today. Paul's ability to engage his culture and use its "new media," from writing to roads, fits with our digital technology's present ubiquity. Pope Gregory's blessing on stained glass as the "Bible for the illiterate" fits with the projection screen's facility to bring post-literate people to a spiritual experience. The explosion of innovation and change that occurred in the church during the Reformation, concurrent with the rise of the new media of the printing press, parallels the explosion in cultural change occurring today. Even the heritage and early growth of The United Methodist Church is rooted in the innovative use of newspapers and circuit riders to spread Scripture. In each case, adoption of innovative communications technology was met with initial resistance, then gradual acceptance.

With the global village we live in today, old traditions such as circuit riders don't make much sense. But the idea of taking the Bible's message to the world is one that remains the same. How can we communicate that message if it is not understood?

Our task as ministers of the Bible is to harness this new media as a primary communications technology to our present digital culture. For example, oration is not dead, it has merely mutated in our culture, to include graphics and videos. While many pastors still are doing sermons as manuscripts that are written like essays and read aloud, the culture has moved onto spoken word as an experience, including performance, image and sound. Just catch a stand-up comic on late night television for evidence. Very few preachers understand this shift, and it has little to do with whether or not they have projection systems in their sanctuary. From the most traditional worship setting to the most innovative, it is very difficult to find a preacher who has stylistically left the bygone modern era. We still present sermons like papers, and if we have screens we present sermons like papers with screen support, while the world thinks, learns, communicates and even retains knowledge through story and metaphor, communicated in visual forms.

At Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Dayton, Ohio, where we served as media staff in the late 1990s, we saw tremendous growth when we began to implement new media on a weekly basis as story and metaphor. In just over two years, attendance leapt from 1,200 to 3,000 in worship. The use of new media played a vital role in that growth. An even more important part of that growth was our understanding of the role of art, story and metaphor.

Simply adding new 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 worshippers. Effective media that incorporated metaphor can help people carry the message outside of worship into their daily lives.

Using new 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.

Len Wilson and Jason Moore are partners in Midnight Oil Productions, which offers seminars and other resources on mixing digital technology and worship.