Sep 26
Projecting Worship — good and bad
Once or twice lately I’ve endured acts of worship where everything was projected on screen – often with bad typography and clashing visuals. But the main thing that made these experiences bad, in my view, was a complete sense of disempowerment. This was not “our” worship: it was simply us responding like Pavlov’s dogs to whatever the projector flashed up in front of us, with no sense of direction, structure or familiarity to enable ownership of the liturgy.
Something can and should be done about this, and a very simple way of giving people some sense of where they are and where things are going is this:
A line across the top of the slide (and every slide) setting out the main structure of the liturgy, with the current section highlighted, helps people locate themselves, and so participate not just in the moment but in the movement.
Having said that, this is still not my preference for something that follows a regular and pattern. People should, I think, be encouraged to learn and own common and frequently used texts, and inhabit the structure, so that worship flows freely, and can handle interruptions, or even common extemporarily offered prayer and praise. Visitors, and those learning their way around, can have simple cards or booklets, but these should be treated more as a pair of stabilizing wheels on a child’s bicycle, a learning device to enable participation. (In fact, everyone should have them, so visitors and learners don’t feel marked out, but people should not be encouraged to depend on them, but use them as learning aids / comfort blankets.)
The projector should be used primarily:
- For people’s texts, when the occasion is not a regular liturgy
- For people’s texts, when they are supplemental to the normal repertoire
- For musical texts, when one wants to encourage freedom of bodily expression
- For visuals, when wants to enhance what is going on
- For specific uses such as visual aids to prayer, or meditations in pictures
But, in my experience, and in my prejudice, constant use of the projector for everything is simply a technological return to an old-fashioned one-man band, where everyone does what the leader tells them. Am I just being grumpy?
September 26th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I go to a small church with very casual services. Those trained to operate the software powering the projector (myself included) have much freedom in what we do. Instead of having a rather linear trail as one might see in a single Power Point presentation, every song, announcement, sermon, etc. can be accessed and manipulated individually. Instead of leading the service with the projector, we really seek to support the service with it, responding to what is happening instead of forcing what happens to adhere to what the projector demands. The software we use can even call up songs or scripture at a moment’s notice from an internal database, again to support what’s actually happening and not enforce what’s been expected to happen. My favorite two buttons in the software are CLEAR and BLANK. When the “projectionist” feel that something on the screen will distract from what’s really happening, they can clear the words/graphics leaving only the static or animated nature background of their choosing, or even gently fade the screen to black where it won’t bother anyone.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Jason, I think I can grasp what you’re describing. It would be interesting to see. What I wonder is how “what is happening” is actually decided, and by whom, and how the power of the projector interacts with it. As I say, I’m not against the use of it, but often find it overdone and controlling. You seem to be describing a different experience that, without knowing the building, the people, the tradition and the dynamic, I can only guess at.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Despite my high-level claims that my church doesn’t suffer from projector control, I’m really interested in the ideas you’ve brought up in this post. I’m going to be thinking about this a lot over the coming weeks. Thanks!
September 26th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Doug and Jason, thanks for your points here. Jason, our situation is quite similar to yours, but like you I can learn from what Doug says.
a technological return to an old-fashioned one-man band, where everyone does what the leader tells them.
Doug, are you saying that you don’t want the congregation to do what the leader tells them, but to go off extempore? Or is your point that you want them to do what the leader tells them but want to put on them the extra burden of learning by heart what they are being told? As Jason points out, sensitively handled projection can handle extempore situations, probably more easily than books or cards can.
I sympathise with your desire to encourage congregations to learn and internalise liturgy, and presumably songs. But in practice this rarely happens when books or cards are available, so there is no good reason to expect projection to make things any worse. However, if it did happen when books or cards are offered, visitors would then feel self-conscious about holding them up to read from when most congregation members do not, whereas if the words are projected visitors can read them without this being conspicuous.
As you point out, one advantage of projection is that it makes it easier to promote bodily movement. This applies not only in songs but also in liturgy. Some beautiful liturgies include various symbolic actions by the congregation. But how are they to perform them if they are holding books or cards? Projected words avoid this problem.
September 26th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Peter, I may have expressed myself badly. I’m reflecting on my own experience where people share a commonly accepted structure, and many commonly owned texts, so that the leader facilitates rather than imposes. A projector can work with that flow, but can also disrupt it. I’ve been to some projector dominated services where clearly no-one has any idea what’s going on, except that they’re supposed to say or sing whatever’s flashed up in front of them. Despite all this, I would use one more, if the building I regularly worshipped in could accommodate one. (It can’t because it would need three screens for everyone to be able to participate, and those screen would block sight lines to one another, and the altar and pulpit. — that’s what happens in a re-ordered church in a Norman shell, half-destroyed in the Civil War and only partially rebuilt!)
September 26th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
As Mcluhan said, the medium is the message - and in this case it is not. PPT is out of place. It is not according to the pattern on that mountaintop. Technology is not neutral.
September 27th, 2007 at 12:02 am
bob–
i agree; technology is not neutral in liturgy, and the medium does become the message. when one is singing from a hymnal, for example, one can close the book as it seems appropriate. the screen, on the other hand, is always there, always bringing one’s attention to it, like a tv set. prayinging, thinking and participating are a flow of engaging and disengaging, and the screen/projection makes enlightened disengagement almost impossible.
September 27th, 2007 at 5:06 am
This is good stuff. Seeing the way singing is “lead from the pews” in most African churches vs. “lead from the front” or the video booth in this case gives much to ponder in who is involved in the worship and how much.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Scott, have you thought of closing your eyes (as many people prefer to do in prayer) or looking away?
Lingamish, I can tell it to you straight as I wouldn’t to others, but where did this nonsense come from that the person controlling the projector is leading anything? Absolutely not! At least as this is done in my church. The projectionist is simply trying to follow the lead of whoever is leading the service. Now you may want services not to be led by anyone but to be entirely spontaneous and Spirit-led (although I’m sure that doesn’t really happen in Africa, someone is leading even if they are not in a physically separate place), but that is not the way it happens in the Anglican churches we are talking about here, whether or not a projector is used. So if you want more spontaneous services, don’t kill the poor projectionist messenger and servant, but get rid of those at the top who decide that they want their service to be led, that they want things to be done decently and in order. Hold on, wasn’t it the Apostle Paul who said that, 1 Corinthians 14:40?
September 28th, 2007 at 2:16 am
peter–
i could close my eyes, but then i might as well stay home. i pray as i kiss– with my eyes open. don’t want to miss a thing.
i could look away, but my periferal vision is just too damn good.
this issue seems to be about who is on control, doesn’t it? many issues seem to settle there.
there is a liminality, a threshhold, that the front doors seem to mark for many in public worship. does one wish to step into the busy-ness of screens, or into ’sacred space?’
a matter of choice–both are acceptable, both reach a different crowd, all are the body of christ.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Peter, I’ll disagree with you here. I can’t speak for your situation but a lot of church services could go on just fine without a single person in the pew. Far too programmed. Might as well be a Sunday matinee.
Watching TV or attending a concert are better metaphors for Western church behavior than the reciprocal Spirit-led ministry that the NT leads us to expect.
Since we’re in Anglican territory here I’ll say that’s one thing I applaud in many of the services I have been in: “audience participation”
September 29th, 2007 at 12:22 am
this issue seems to be about who is on control, doesn’t it?
No, Scott, it is NOTHING to do with who is in control. The one in control is the one up front. The projectionist is simply projecting the words of the liturgy or the song exactly as would be in front of the worshipper in a book or card. Many times when I have been the projectionist I have had to scrabble around for the right words, or even turn off the projector, because the one in control up the front has departed from the expected liturgy or song words and started improvising. I have no way to control them to get them back on course. Of course anyone trying to follow with a service book or hymn book would have the same problem with such improvisation.
I simply don’t understand how the situation can be so badly misunderstood. I suppose in principle a service could be organised so that the projectionist is in charge and the platform people just follow what is projected, a bit like actors following teleprompts. But I can’t see that happening in an Anglican church, actually not in any other type of church I know.
But, Scott, you are right that typically projection does not create the right kind of atmosphere for some people, who are looking for “sacred space”. It’s just that I don’t think many people are looking for that, and anyway I would think that sensitively handled projection can be made consistent with the “sacred space” idea.
Lingamish, I agree that there is far too little audience participation in many services. The point of projection is to stimulate that participation by showing the congregation the words which they are supposed to say, which is the Church of England model of audience participation. There are other models, such as attending a concert, for which projection would be used in rather different ways.
October 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
The most risible I have seen is a row of launderette washing machines in the background for the Absolution, or, yes, wait for it – Words of Comfort. It takes product placement to new depths!
Much of the debate is about cultural/spiritual reference. I would add that for those congregations who prefer singing that projects forward not down into their boots via the pages of a hymnal, the screens are a God-send. Not many are willing to hold the hymnal or prayer book in front of their faces (so that they project sound forward), perhaps for fear of encroaching on the space of those in the pew in front. Screens are also quite useful if you worship in a church where they gently crank down the chandeliers for you swing from; the risk assessment doesn’t allow us to do it with just one hand whilst holding a book!