Several years ago, I attended a convention worship service which ended with open prayer at various stations. As I prayed on hand and knee under a wooden cross, I had one of the most intense worship times of my life. And then a flash went off. I kept my head down but I was sure a staff photographer had taken my picture—during a private and intimate moment.
Sure enough, a picture of me fervently praying was shown on the big screens in a general session montage the next night. That was me in a private time with God—displayed for everyone. I wasn't ashamed to be shown in worship, but it felt like a private moment was being used publicly, almost like an advertisement for the conference's great worship. I didn’t make a big deal of it, but it bugged me. And obviously, it was strange enough for me that I’ve remembered it all these years.
I thought of this episode on Sunday when I attended the National Religious Broadcasters convention church service. During worship, cameramen—with video cameras equipped with bright lights—walked through the darkened crowd to capture footage of worshiping singers. Their images graced the giant screens on either side of the stage. During the sermon, cameramen again streamed through the aisles to capture attendees flipping through their Bibles and listening. Without a doubt, it was disruptive. I also wonder about the appropriateness.
Even in corporate worship, shouldn’t personal communion with God remain somewhat private and intimate? Or does this fall under the category of being–like David—completely unbothered by who sees us worship and how? I don’t think I have any qualms with being “undignified and humiliated in my own eyes” when in front of my God. However, I also don’t think my worship needs to be used and broadcast—especially when it could feel like my worship is used to “sell” the effectiveness of the service.
Thinking this through has made me see that staging a worship event is a tricky prospect; media ministers at churches have difficult strategy decisions to make. There’s the tension of wanting to involve people who are not up front with wanting to be respectful. There’s the tension of entertaining with establishing a worshipful mood.
What do you think: Is there a line not to be crossed when it comes to filming private, intimate time with God? How do you draw that line? Are you even bothered by churches or worship planners filming or taking pictures people in worship? Why or why not?
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Comments (13)
There is a fine line between participation in this and spectacle. You knew as you worshipped that others around you could watch you and I'm sure that didn't bother you. Putting on the screen shifted it from you as part of the larger body to you as an individual. I totally get what you're saying. It's somehow taken out of context. I suppose it would be similar to the church as a body analogy focusing on a single body part rather than the body as a whole.
Not sure if I'm capturing your ideas but that's how I see it.
http://www.thinkchristian.net/...
Reading your post I'm reminded of what Jesus said about those who pray loudly on street corners. I wonder if the presence of cameras influences us toward worshiping for the benefit of our own reputation as sincere or pious. That to me is reason enough to reconsider their ubiquity.
Is it possible that if we were more aware of the ideological content of the media by which we worship, and more conscious of and resistant to the steady creep of consumerism and consumerist mediation into our worship spaces, this question would be a moot one?
In other words, maybe the problem is the fact that there were gigantic video screens to begin with - screens which, as McLuhan and other media scholars would point out, are themselves functioning ideologically - and not necessarily the specific content of what was being shown on them?
That being said I have been asked (and have done so) to take pictures of people worshipping. Before being asked to do this I didn't think much of the request because I had been in the newspaper business for some time as a photojournalist so part of my job was taking pictures of people. Sometimes not at their best (their house is burning down, someone was murdered, etc.). I guess I could justify it was part of the job but it was still somewhat difficult at times....
After I shot a dozen or so pictures of people up front worshiping alone (some were even young kids) I went home, cleaned up the pictures and turned them over to the media director.
I was a little disturbed when I saw them in the newspaper and on the screen the next Sunday. Taking pictures at the newspaper was difficult in that it held it's own ethical delima....I wasn't necessarily always shooting pictures for public awareness but more for the sale of the paper.
There was some vaguely familiar with the church pictures....as if they were trying to convince people......or dare I say sell them on something?
Yea, we could say people see us anyway but that isn't the real reason we're disturbed. In some weird way, what we're doing is being sold to the watching audience, and that just isn't right.
Needless to say....I didn't take those pictures again.
While I agree that worship should not be exploited (to sell newspapers or promote a church), this is the information age, and documenting people in worship can be instructive to people who don't know about the reality of Christ in people's lives.
And those people don't have the right to be asked whether or not they consent to having their pictures broadcast on a giant screen for everyone to see? Aside from the fact that giant screens carry their own ideological content and function in a way that promotes the heretical ideology of consumerism, I think that's the issue here. Does a person waive the right to have a private or personal worship experience if they're in a setting with live photographers or videographers and giant projection screens? Does "documenting people in worship" for the purposes of displaying that to "people who don't know about the reality of Christ in people's lives" trump whether an individual might not want to have his or her worship experience broadcast in front of everyone?