VIDEO SCREENS IN THE SANCTUARY!

Whenever I hear church people put their feet down and say, "There shall never be video screens in their church's sanctuary," I pause, look straight at them and ask why. They nearly always respond that they are traditional. And I say, "OK, good; and what does this have to do with video screens? Does your church have indoor plumbing, because traditionally, churches sent people to outhouses. Church outhouses are very, very traditional, and ecumenical - so far as I can tell, up until about the year 1900, outhouses were as fundamental as Trinitarian theology to Christianity worldwide." People either smile or glare when I say this.

When I was growing up, in a land where the Churches of Christ abounded (of the Campbellite variety), there was an automated telephone info-line that the Churches of Christ in my hometown provided with an answer to almost any religious question that one could think of. One summer as a bored teenager, increasingly interested in religion, I called their info line multiple times to get the definitive answer on any number of questions, including the question about the most bedrock issue of all - not about the Resurrection, but about the inappropriateness of pianos in a house of worship. The reason for no pianos in the church was very simple: "The New Testament church worshiped without pianos. They are a modern contrivance that distracts from purity of worship and the proper focus on the Word."   

I went to my mainline protestant church and asked why we had pianos, since the early church did not have them, and everyone giggled at my question. Silly boys ask silly questions I guess.

A few years ago, in one of the most elegant and traditional houses of worship in America, the Washington National Cathedral, I noticed that they had installed flat screen monitors on columns along both sides of the nave. More recently, I could not find any vital house of worship in Spain or Portugal where there were not some kind of screens installed for visual media. These were in Roman Catholic churches on the Iberian peninsula mind you, not exactly a hot bed for trendy ministry innovation. But it is 2017, and the world is increasingly wired and visual in the way that they digest a story or come to understand a truth.

So, why, dear friends, are liberal mainline Protestants in America so often defensive and reactive about the gentle integration of electronic media into worship? Is it an allergy that they have carried over from the worship wars of the 1990s? Are they afraid that a screen means that all dignity and liturgy is about to be thrown out the door? The IQ is pretty high in most of these churches. I do not find it plausible that a large number of people really think that a video screen is irreconcilable with tradition. We have reconciled all kinds of modern practices and sensibilities with tradition.

Or is it that a few very loud people in these churches are grieving the loss of so much in their world and in their lives and have decided that they can make their church the place where nothing changes as a strategy for their personal comfort and therapy?

When you are renovating a worship facility, regardless of the style of your worship, in 99 percent of cases, it makes sense to integrate audio-visual technology into the design. There may be some kinds of uses that are minimized in certain worship settings. But the possibilities of technology to provide words and images for liturgy, to enable the bishop to greet the congregation on a special Sunday, to be able to celebrate the faces of the church's saints along with its grand kids on their birthday - these are all compatible with any style of worship. And in an age where the vast majority of young adults are connecting with churches that are technologically savvy in the way they communicate the gospel, why on earth would we want to cut ourselves off from the ability to utilize video feed and the use of evocative images? Just because you have an organ doesn't mean you have to play it for every hymn. And just because you have a media system does not mean that it needs to be utilized for every gathering.

Your church may be able to articulate a good reason not to invest in technology in a worship facility - but please - let's be honest. It has nothing to do with traditional versus contemporary worship.