Let the Luddites Rejoice

The Thin Edge has a reflection on how much our church services rely on technology:

This past Sunday in Wales, a group of elders gathered at their church building to pray. The ancient stone chapel had been without heating since a group of construction workers shut off the gas supply to the building earlier in the week, then forgot to turn it back on for the weekend. It was judged to be too cold for the morning worship service—scheduled two hours later—so the local telephone lines began blazing with elders contacting members of the church leadership team, who contacted small group leaders, who contacted everyone within their house group. It was decided to meet at an older (and smaller, but warmer) chapel building nearby. I’m not sure if the elders got to pray or not.
Unfortunately, this change of venue caught a lot of people by surprise: especially the church’s musicians, sound engineers, computer operators and the preacher. His entire message was developed as a laptop-based, visually-oriented PowerPoint presentation. Upon arrival at the old building, it was abuzz with people frantically running wires and junction boxes and speakers and a massive sound board so that the keyboard, instruments, singers, and the preacher could be heard in a room that only measured eighteen hundred square feet.
Some of the greatest movements of God happened long before the discovery of electricity, much less the arrival of computer geniuses like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. While I certainly don’t advocate wearing camel’s hair and eating wild locusts and honey, I have to wonder how many worship gatherings this coming Sunday would fall flat if some natural disaster shut down the national grids of electric power in megawatt-hungry church buildings around the globe.

Personally, I kind of like it when things go wrong during worship services. It thrusts our fallibility to the forefront, which is always humbling.

Do you have any great "technological failures in church" stories you'd like to share? What do you think of our reliance on technology? And probably most importantly is this question from The Thin Edge: "Are we more sensitive to the loss of electricity than the presence of the Holy Spirit in our meetings?"

Other thoughts?

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Comments (9)

I wish that our church relied less on technology. Growing up Roman Catholic, I'm used to basic microphones and a hymnal, an organ or guitar, choir or song leader. It worked. I'm now a member of an Assemblies of God church, and while I love the greater freedom of worship, I also get frustrated by the roadblocks of technology.

Using PowerPoint to project lyrics on a big screen is nice, except when the Holy Spirit leads the worship team to mixing up the order of the song. Expensive microphones and soundboards might mean everyone can hear in the poor acoustics of our sanctuary (aka the Christian school's gym), but it also might over-amplify things during a small Wednesday night service to the point that a person can't hear God over the mic'd drums and squalling of the worship leader.

I'd like to put out a plea to church leaders everywhere... look at your congregation during a service. Not just the first few rows, but the middle and the back, around the edges and at the door. Do you see small children tugging their ears, or people covering an ear ? Maybe they have sensitive ears or wear a hearing aid and your sound system is blasting their ear drums by amping up certain frequencies. Do you see people worshiping, and then suddenly just stop and stare uncomfortably ? Perhaps they don't know the lyrics and your worship leader is following the leading of the Holy Spirit, but technology is leaving your congregation behind.
Before the Luddites get all too excited, remember that the telephones used to contact people and let them know about the change worked just fine. Oh, and we're reading this on the internet. :-)
CMF's comments are worthwhile -- I come from the same background. On he other hand, I recently spoke with a visitor whose children said our music "wasn't loud enough." :)

Our church recently became a "multi-site" church where we use Internet streaming for the main message of the morning. We've had technical problems galore (we use DVD as a backup), but we're convinced that the technology -- when it works -- will help expand the church's outreach...
dons,

I'm really interested in the beaming in your sermon from the internet phenomenon. How does your church combat the feelings of disconnect between the congregation and the preacher?
I'm not personally a fan of streaming - but the disconnect can't be any worse than what I experience in the congregation I preach at. Heck, when I first got there I was up on the platform, behind a HUGE pulpit, and sitting in a torture device/chair. I couldn't see half the congregation, and the half that I could see started populating the pews about 5 rows from the back (leaving six empty in front of me). Talk about actions speaking louder than words!

Physical presence doesn't mean being connected, nor does internet streaming mean mean disconnection. Depends on the people. Still, I don't care for the streaming aspect - it can lead to a cult of personality (we're culturally geared towards standing in awe of folks we "see on tv"). Might be better to have 2 or three preachers prepare sermons together - varying in nuance and delivery but staying the same in core content - and have them rotate through the sites every now and again.
I had the bulb on our projector over-head one Sunday. Oh well, I prepare my sermons to only make use of the screen - not depend on them. So if the thing blows up I just preach anyway with out any glitches (I might just have to describe an illustration or two, at most, no biggie).

I'm musing about writing a book on utilizing a screen during worship, one of the first chapters is going to say, "If you can't do this without the screen, then don't even attempt to do it with the screen."
A few weeks ago at our newest worship venue, the sound system was whacked out. We cut the sound and preached without a mic. Worked well--value of small venues. On Good Friday the power went out 20 minutes before our evening gathering in the same place. We lit candles and rolled on--turned out to be a great experience.

Our philosophy is always, let technology add to the service but don't make it the foundation. If the PP fails, we ought to be able to preach anyway. If the sound system goes haywire we ought to be able to worship anyway. Most multi-sites I know that do rely on video always have a live backup as well.
Having been a muso since I was nine, sometimes recording and sometimes just performing, I am acutely aware when something technical gets a hitch. This can have it's draw backs when I am worshipping. I can pick up a glaring or even slight not quite right problem. So yes, we are too much reliant on technology. Some of the most intense worship moments have come when simply playing acoustic guitar. We condition ourselves to become reliant on things over the years and eventually fail to see our dependence on those little "luxuries" like electricty. Pathetic arent we? A pastor in touch with the Spirit should be able to breeze through the hiccups. After having studied hard to do an item at church I've sometimes found that the Holy Spirit took over with something else to say. I musn't have been listening in the fist place.
Personally, I often tended to "rely" upon the technology too often. It wasn't until my tech director explained to me his view that glitches and the like are the Spirit's way of letting us rely on Him instead, that I let it go. Now, I look forward to moments where glitches occur. It gives me a chance to exemply mercy and grace as well as giving us a good chuckle which may be even better!

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