PowerPointless in Huntsville
PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they’ve come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.
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To use PowerPoint in worship is to unwittingly set up a competition between what’s projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. And it’s a contest that PowerPoint always wins because, as Richard Lischer has observed, when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening. What PowerPoint enthusiasts see as enhancing the worship experience—projecting pictures of water during a baptism or images of fire and wind on Pentecost—is instead a form of sensory overload that manipulates emotions and stifles imagination. It is difficult to cultivate an awareness and appreciation of ambiguity and mystery in worship when images are projected at strategically timed moments in the liturgy for the purpose of instructing worshipers what to think and feel.
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And so questions beg to be asked. In regard to the increasing use of PowerPoint in churches of all shapes and sizes it is worth pondering: What understanding of the purpose of worship does it assume? What are the personal and communal tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it create? What kind of people does it produce? If Christians believe that the church and the worship it offers to God ought in some ways to counter the norms and practices of the surrounding culture, then what does it mean that after spending so much of our time each week in front of computer monitors, cell phones, and sports bar TVs, we come to church on Sunday and happily position ourselves in front of the biggest screen of all?”
–Deborah Dean Murphy in The Christian Century
Much has been written on modern-day “worship wars,” JumboTrons in the sanctuary (er, I mean “worship center”) and seeker-friendly, coffee-soaked song services. For instance, there is this, this and this. I really don’t have much to add. But I do have the following to offer:
When the PowerPoint animations started cranking up during the song service on Sunday, I averted my gaze per usual. I’m not a fan, and it just makes me mad if I watch them. So rather than have my attitude totally tank, I look away and try to think about something else.
As a result, I missed the rose. The one that appeared on the JumboTron at precisely the right moment (as if on cue), just when the congregation sang the words “like a rose, trampled on the ground,” at the height of the praise song “Above All.” The one that wilted, “like a rose, soaked with Roundup,” in slow motion, just to make sure that everyone got the point. The PowerPoint, that is.
I am not a Luddite (I blog for Pete’s sake). But I like old churches–churches that look like churches (with lots of stained glass), not Amway convention centers. Low light and a few candles are nice too. I like a real altar–front and center–not little coffee tables with hidden caches of expedient, shiny silver trays, the Body and Blood conveniently tucked away–out of sight. A little peace and quiet (since there’s not much of that anywhere else) is nice too. I like to hear scripture read–with passion and conviction. I like to hear it ring out among the people, bearing Good News and speaking the old, but steady truth. It has the power to move and convict–without digital assistance.
Sometimes I fantasize that I’m the woman in the 1984 Apple computer TV ad (the one recently used as the basis for a Barack Obama plug that appeared on YouTube). I’m racing into the sanctuary, uh, I mean “worship center,” with a giant sledge hammer, a dozen or so worship ministers in helmets and full riot gear giving chase. The hypnotized congregants, their eyes transfixed to the JumboTron filled with wilting roses and angels descending like aliens from their spaceships, are unaware of my presence until I spin, spin, spin, launching the hammer into the screen, shattering it in a burst of light, a light that illumines and awakens the masses from their dystopian, business model trance.
Yes, yes, I know it is all done with good intentions, a good faith effort to give the people what they want and “need.” I’m sure George Barna said somewhere that it’s the statistically correct thing to do. But is there anyone else who has noticed how similar sounding “Barna” is to “Barnum,” as in P.T. Barnum, as in “there’s a sucker born every minute?”
I have a dream. I dream of a day when I will be PowerPointless in Huntsville.
But, alas, tis only a dream.
36 Comments
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Terri
I suppose it’s all a matter of taste or maybe personality type. I like the Powerpoint when singing because it keeps our heads up and our voices are stronger than when we keep our airways closed by looking down at a book.
I prefer to have an outline of the lesson where the outlines are not on the screen so that I can pay attention better. I’ve got about 20 minutes before my mind goes to the mall or somewhere outside so if it’s too easy for me to “see” the sermon on the screen, I don’t remember it – I need to write it.
As my mother would say, “It’s not a matter of salvation for me”
Hal
I’m with you. Our church doesn’t use PowerPoint in worship, and when I visit another church that does it is a distraction for me.
KS
I am for powerpoint. I do think it helps the singing and keeps me with the sermon much better. I am not for turning pages between each song, it seems to flow better with powerpoint.
Mike the Eyeguy
Hal, you and I are a couple of Old Farts.
See ya in the nursing home, good buddy.
Tarwater
Chesterton said there is only one thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his own age. Care to guess? I find it the height of wisdom to rarely disagree with Mr. Chesterton. 😉
Mike the Eyeguy
Tarwater, I had a feeling you might say something like that!
More Chesterton:
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.”
Hal
I resemble that remark.
DAVID u
I love powerpoint…….and I am an old fart too! 🙂
DU
Mike the Eyeguy
You’re a better man than me, DU (and probably less smelly too).
I just feel like we sometimes use things because they’re faddish and “cool,” not because they’re useful or appropriate. Call me crazy, but I really believe that.
Ed
That’s funny because I did the same thing you did with the animation (didn’t know about the rose until now) … and that’s all I have to say about that 😮
BTW, you have been censored from my workplace. Must be that radical and free thinking that goes on around here! Regardless, I will be making less frequent appearances.
Mike the Eyeguy
Et tu, Ed?
Wow, my first censorship. I wonder how many more before I’m done.
Mike the Eyeguy
Lest I obfuscate with my arcane prose, allow me to use a more easy to understand and familiar format:
Scott
“When the speaker uses it as a crutch and cover for poor preparation or oratory skill…”
So, now you are expecting us preacher types to go back to exegesis and study and preparation. You really expect us to have actual content when we stand up there on Sunday morning? Pomp, Circumstance and Gates isn’t enough?
Sheesh, what more do you people want from me? I’ll go extract another pound of flesh now.
Mike the Eyeguy
Heh.
No need to strap on a cilice there, Scott. I just have this curious notion that all professions need to be held to some accountability. I constantly have patients shaking their fists at me and yelling, “I can’t see out of these @#$%^&+* glasses!
I just want to share the joy.
bpb
I don’t like powerpoint either. I find it very distracting. Sadly, I can’t read (without my glasses) that screen – I can read the songbook. Several places where I’ve been that use powerpoint just have the words to the song. Great — when you know the song. What about visitors? I have no idea where my “part” is because there are no parts shown on the powerpoint presentation. And when we’re watching pictures during communion – still distracting for me. Maybe it’s just a few of us since so many people seem to love it. I guess the older I get, the more “old-fashioned” I get.
Mike the Eyeguy
Indeed, bpb, near-sighted “old fashioned” people are becoming as rare as dinosaurs!
I only call for discernment here. Why must we always seem to hop aboard every evangelical fad that comes barreling down the tracks?
When I worship at a liturgical church (which is to say, as often as I can) I seem to be able to better transcend the daily digital grind and catch a glimpse of God in the ancient rhythm of Table and Word.
All that, and not a JumboTron in sight.
Carolinagirl
This popped-up at my parents’ home congergation a couple of years ago and I just gasped. Of course, one must understand, that being in the military, death by power point is a common thing. When I asked my parents about it, they commented as a few have here already that it keeps our heads-up, out of songbooks, and makes us look at each other. Still, I’d say that technology has got to have a point into which it doesn’t venture.
Mike the Eyeguy
Death by power point is common in my line of work too.
But that’s just the (Power) point–when I go to church, I don’t want everything to look and feel just like work. I want sanctuary (literally).
Donna
I agree with you eye-guy…..that is rare unless we are talking Bama football…Ha!
I like the words of the songs but not the distractions of video hokieness.
Mike the Eyeguy
“video hokieness.”
Yeah, even though I went there for a year of graduate school, I never cared much for Virginia Tech either.
April K.
I’m with you Eye Guy. I like the quiet, solemn, traditional service without electronics. Dark and moody with candles is even better.
I’ve visited churches with Jumbotrons and found them extremely distracting. Like bpb, I need to see the music when attempting to sing.
If a person wants to Get Right With God while focused on a flashing electronic screen, why not just stay home from church and have ’em mail out a DVD of the service to watch on TV?
Mike the Eyeguy
Thanks for the support April. I know a lot of people think this is merely a To-MAY-toe versus To-MAH-toe situation, and I allow that some of this may be taste. But when I can hardly tell the difference between church and plopping down $8 for the latest release at the local cineplex, then something seems amiss.
JAW
I agree with you, Eye Guy…but I guess you already knew that. I would like to think that as a 29-yr-old I’m not an old fart. A number of my Catholic and Episcopalian colleagues here at Pepp have asked me on a number of occasions: “What’s the deal with the Church of Christ and PowerPoint? To be so anti-musical instrument you folks sure seem to enjoy playing your cheesy PowerPoint slides!”
I would much prefer a piano added to worship than a stupid picture of a deer on the screen when I sing “As the Deer.” And is a PowerPoint projector any more “scriptural” than that piano?
Mike the Eyeguy
JAW–You may not be there yet, but perhaps you’re an Old-Fart-in-the-making. When you’re ripe enough, we’ll gladly welcome you into the club.
Catholics and Episcopalians are historically astute and are much more in touch with that great treasure chest which is tradition and liturgy. We johnnies-come-lately could learn a thing or two from them.
Come on now, James! We all know that PPT is both expedient and a “necessary inference.” 🙂
Clarissa
Wow. I didn’t know PPT was such an issue with so many (having visited the links you provided.) I like it while attempting to keep my attention on a speaker … I’ve always had a hard time maintaining focus during spoken lessons. However, I don’t think MediaShout (or your poison of choice) is necessary during congregational singing, though PPT slides with the words alone are certainly helpful. The music speaks more than any picture ever could, in my opinion, at least when we’re singing. I agree with what Terri said — even if it’s just words, having something to draw the eye upward keeps the airway primed for singing. Now if a group has prepared a song to share and the congregation will be listening, it might be helpful for some of them to have a visual, as it is for me when I’m just listening to a speaker.
Mike the Eyeguy
Clarissa, thanks for stopping by and for your thoughts.
I hope it’s clear that it is not PPT per se that makes me break out into hives. It’s the gratuitous and ill-advised use (or overuse) that seems to be reaching pandemic proportions.
Brady
I live in the land of no ppt. However, there is a group in the USA that puts out slides with notes (http://www.aviewofworship.com/) and I have sung their stuff with much pleasure.
I was recently at a church where there were two projections, a full band on stage, three singers, a light show and smoke. Lots of smoke. (But no candles.) I was a fish out of water.
Mike the Eyeguy
“The land of no PPT” sounds like someplace from a fairy tale. But I’m glad that such a place really exists.
I would like to visit it someday.
bpb
And I also found out that the church I attended that used the PowerPoint for the song service had to pay for that priviledge. Just seems like money that could better be used for other things.
Mike the Eyeguy
Amen. And that goes for JumboTrons too.
Bill Gnade
Dear Data Worshipers (I jest!),
I DO break out into hives every time someone trundles out another electronic gadget to proclaim Christ, our Lord Whose Voice rings out through the ages in a cappella clarity.
On Easter Sunday past, I attended the great Park Street Church in Boston. Miracle upon miracles, no PowerPoint, no praise band, no overhead projectors. (For you true CC folks, clap your ears now.) Just a choir, a small orchestra, an organ, and hymnals everywhere. What can I say about that experience? I can say the same thing about Park Street Church now that I could say about it 25 years ago when I first attended services there as a college freshman: no congregation sings louder and with more vigor than that church. The notion that a hymnal impedes voice is a bit strained; countless choirs and soloists have been managing just fine for centuries. Park Street continues to prove that song and worship is not a matter of technology but one of intent and interest and passion. And as for the idea that a hymnal prevents worshipers from looking at each other, I have but one simple thought: Good for the hymnal. This ONE hour of our lives is NOT about US; we are not singing in order to clear a bright pathway from lung to larynx or to make ourselves FEEL something; we are not singing in order to emulate a Gaither concert (fine as they are) with loads of empathic and earnest expressions, or smiles combined with sincere eye contact. We are worshiping a living God. This is His hour.
One writer said above that she needs PowerPoint in order to hold her attention, because she’s got about 20 minutes of attention-span built-in software that fails at the 21-minute mark. I’ve got a suggestion, and it is perfectly relevant: shorten the sermon! (For those of you who might oppose instruments in worship, and do so based on the premise that the New Testament does not mention musical instruments, I ask you this: Should any sermon be longer than any similar sermon in the New Testament? How long is the Sermon on the Mount, or Stephen’s apology or Paul’s defense in Acts? No sermon need be any longer. Of course, short sermons take work.)
Some churches enamored of PowerPoint have begun to remove pew Bibles and hymnals from the sanctuary. How sad! I know that I, as a mere child, found these things the very marrow of my church experience. The last thing I wanted to do, or was even capable of doing, was to sit (as a child) and do what the grown-ups did; they listened to some really important guy rambling on and on. I would rather do nothing. But I never DID do nothing. Instead, I pored through the concordance of the pew Bible following the links (oops!) to all the passages that had to with “Dog” or “Fire” or “Knives.” I learned the layout of both Testaments; I memorized the order of the books therein. Sometimes I’d turn to the hymnals, reading the lyrics to my favorite hymns (at the time), like “Blessed Assurance” or “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” There’d be mornings I’d read the creeds, the psalter, the amens. Sometimes I’d look for 16th notes and hard rests; I’d wonder about forte and diminuendo.
All this to say that I was engaged in Christian literacy as a child — during the sermon! I cannot do that now, now that the pew Bibles are gone and I am unable to flip through the PowerPoint and look for crazy tangents about “Dog.” And if I had not had the Bible in my hands, I would not have discovered the story of Lazarus, how the dogs licked his wounds. What images, what memories! What a way to simply learn how to read Christian scriptures and hymnody — for MYSELF!
My ultimate beef has to do with our dependence on electricity. What will we do to learn, to worship, to understand, if we lose power? It seems we have lost the unplugged joy of living. Not only would Thoreau turn in his grave, I think he’d throw through the window our love of electrical gadgetry even if it appeared in a Unitarian Church in Walpole, Massachusetts. As T.S. Eliot might have asked, where has the knowledge gone of silence, of using our eyes and brains unassisted?
Of course, I must leave this space to attend to my own digital turf.
(Uncanny, Mike, that you would quip about your time at VT in this thread.)
Peace to you all, with love, affection, and much mirth,
BG
Mike the Eyeguy
Bill, your valuable (and witty) contribution to this thread made my day!
And yes, I had thought about that tongue-in-cheek quip about “hokiness” several times this week. Needless to say, I do care a great deal about VT and value my time there now more than ever.
I hope you noggin has healed (apparently, it has!).
Bill Gnade
Wow, Mike. I came back this morning to ask you to delete my comment from yesterday. After I posted it, I thought it sounded too strident, sarcastic and impolite. Perhaps it still is. But if you found it acceptable, then I will follow your good judgment.
As for the concussion and my recovery, I still have freaky intermittent vertigo and some other residual effects. I may never shake some of these symptoms, though I am trying. My cognitive function seems OK, but I feel like my brain is slowed down by clots of anxiety. Who knows? But my skiing career might be over. My wife, in fact, says that it is.
Peace to you, and thanks for the prayers!
Gnade
Mike the Eyeguy
Well, the post itself was a little sassy, so your comment fit right in. 🙂 You brought back good memories of hymnals, concordances and childhood tangents, among which, I’m sad to say, was counting ceiling tiles at the Roanoke Church of Christ.
I think it takes a while to recover from a concussion as severe as yours. If your wife is right, then what a way to go out. At least you didn’t end up like Sonny Bono or Michael Kennedy, and that is something to be thankful for.
Bill Gnade
Mike,
I may have to take a few runs next season to get a few video clips of the “old man” on the mountain as a reminder of days gone by. Who knows? The facts are that I really must NEVER hit my head again like I did this year, and that the brain, apparently, does not “forget” these kinds of injuries. Besides, there is no doubt that I could easily have broken my neck or back in the fall that I took; there is no reason to think otherwise when I ended up flying — backwards through the air — unable to spot a landing or to choose how I would land.
Much of me feels that God has given me a wake up call. I must listen.
This morning my wife and I visit an Anglican Church an hour east of here. It’s a bit of a haul in New Hampshire terms, but I look forward to finding there the simplicity, the quiet, the unity, you described in your essay. It is near impossible to be a meaningful part of any church that is so far away; as you know the Episcopal Church in NH (and the US) is largely falling the way of the Golden Calf. So an orthodox Anglican experience will be refreshing, despite its distance or that there are so few orthodox havens left on the landscape.
At least our Lord remains orthodox.
Peace.
Gnade
Mike the Eyeguy
I hope you find your peace at the Table and in the Word.