Distractions. How distracting to the audience are technical difficulties? That depends.
So, yesterday, at the request of my mother, we (myself, my wife, and my two young boys) went to her church for worship and the subsequent family cookout. Before continuing, let me just state that we absolutely love our home church. We've never found a place that we felt to be as real and genuine and relevant for us and we always feel like we're reminded of how special Grace Fellowship is when we visit somewhere else. I know most people probably feel that way, or should, about their own church, which is probably why they go there. I know my mom feels that way. Needless to say, my mother's church, tends much more to the traditional Southern Baptist ways of doing things, where Grace is very "hip" and inviting, but still provides fundamental Bible teaching in a way that is relevant and approachable. Now that's not to say that my mother's church doesn't provide that, but there's certainly a definite demographic difference between our chosen churches, which most definitely contributes to the way in which the services are presented. This leads to the specific topic for which I decided to post a blog entry, which is, the way in which services are presented and how that affects the worship participants.
I have a pro-sound background, inclusive of recording, touring, and even being on staff as the "Church Sound Guy". I can tend toward being overly critical as it relates to the quality of production during a service, I also know and believe that God doesn't need perfect production to change lives. Of course, we as performers, directors, producers and artists like to think, sometimes, that our perfect presentation of this song, or our excellent lighting choice (blue gels instead of green, and, how cool, a cross gobo), or my selecting that chamber reverb over the slap echo made all the difference in the mood and that's what caused that person to feel that particular way and make that decision at that moment to give their life to God. But we all have to remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit doesn't need perfect production.
Now, all that to say this...while God doesn't need perfect production to change lives, for the people attempting to participate in the worship experience, the closer to perfect the production comes, the less distracted they are and the more likely to remain focused and experience a truly meaningful moment or even a moment that does bring life-change. I think it also reflects positively or negatively on the church's brand. Brand, as Phil Cooke points out in his book (see side bar) Branding Faith, is nothing more than the perception that someone has of your church or organization. I think this also tends to be even more important in churches that are in transition. Churches that may not have fully embraced technology but are moving in that direction. My visit yesterday was a good example.
Without spending too much more time on unnecessary detail, here's what happened and what I noticed. During one of the congregational praise songs, which happened to be a new song for me as well as the congregation, there was a disconnect between what the leader was singing and the words that were being displayed on the dual projection screens. The choir seemed unsure suddenly. This disconnect extended to the people in the pews as they stopped singing and began to look around toward the "tech booth" to see if, in fact, the "power point guy" had fallen asleep. There was obviously a sense of something going wrong that was now a distraction to many people.
I've heard it said and agree that the best productions are the ones where the tech crew goes unnoticed. (Not unappreciated, mind you, just unnoticed.) In a church like my mother's, where the demographic is older and often more resistant to change, any new technology or new idea that isn't well executed provides more reason for keeping the status quo. Now, I know many of the folks my mother knows and they are all very sweet and wonderful people and quite forgiving of the "power point guy", but the point is this, we, as technicians and performers are to help facilitate an environment of worship. The less distraction we provide, the better. However, we also must never forget that our audience, the audience that every single one of us, technicians, performers, worship leaders, worship participants (note I specifically refer to worship participants, not audience members) seeks to delight with our performance is God. We all should seek to give our best in worship, not for each other, but for God. He is the object of our worship.
I really just wanted to remind technicians and performers, and even participants, that the focus in what we're doing should be God. He'll take care of the rest. His Spirit will move and work. We simply need to seek His face. As we push faders, be it lighting or sound, or as we click through to the next slide, whatever we are doing, we should do as if Jesus himself were the only one in the room and He were the one we were trying to impress with our worship, because He is.
