Protestant churches across the nation are using various forms of emerging technology to influence people’s lives and enliven their church experience. But the pace of technology adoption seems to have slowed in the past two years as some churches focus upon making the most of what they already have, and other churches attempt to get by without incorporating such tools into their ministry mix.
It seems to me that the types of technology used in churches will change as the Web 2.0 tools become more incorporated into the mainstream. Moreover, as traditional broadcast media models – large screens, etc., become more natively mixed in with the Web 2.0 applications, I think we will see more blogs, more podcasts, etc. The Web 2.0 stuff doesn’t have nearly the expense or hardware overhead, which suggests to me that the stagnation of the more broadcast-oriented media puts it at near-saturation in the market.
Other thoughts?
Sometimes I’m so sick I seeing a screen all week, I don’t want to see it in church, too. There was one Sunday the computer crashed and we all had to use hymnals again and it was so nice to be low tech again.
I think I’m with Grant on this one.
There’s definitely a place for technology, but only as a means of distributing content or encouraging conversation. A website that has the church’s address and the time of the service is good. A well-maintained blog that includes interesting stuff that didn’tmake the cut for the sermon is even better. Podcasts are great for people who missed the service.
But the actual service, when everyone is gather together for worship, is a place where technology (other than the technology needed to make sure that everyone can see and hear) isn’t needed, because the need for content distribution and conversation is already being met by the service itself.
I don’t care for projection screens in the sanctuary. When it comes to hymns, I like to see the musical notation (I can’t hold a tune in any event, but still!), and when a song is unfamiliar, it’s difficult to sing without knowing the notes.
As far as other uses for projection screens go, maybe others respond differently to this sort of thing, in which case the charitable thing to do is to shut up and go along, but photographs of beautiful sunsets don’t conjure up feelings of the numinous or bend my mind towards worship. They make me think of those silly motivational posters, which makes me cynical, and that’s not something I want in church.