Projecting Images

One of the non-negotiables for me in corporate worship on Sunday is having the freedom to project images to aid us in singing and in learning. This does not mean cheesy PowerPoint slides that fly in or tacky images of Jesus with feathered hair holding a lamb. It does mean using words to help people in liturgy (the words we use to Worship God) and in song as well as the use of words to help people see the road map of a sermon (the outline). Also, I often use images, and video from films to teach. So, the use of projection in Church is pretty important. Many folks recoil at the idea of projected images mostly (and rightly so) because they have seen "PowerPoint" done so poorly and slavishly in worship. In America, if we can do it we tend to do it just as the baroque artist could do any kind of painting they wanted and did (it was hideous). However, I believe that all technologies are mere tools. The question is not can we but should we use it to aid our worship. Done thoughtfully and with some restraint, projection can be pretty amazing. This week, Josh Moyer and I experimented at Ascension with projection and came up with an astonishing solution. There is a mural of the ascension of Jesus on the back wall of the worship space (called the chancel). After working with screens on the sides, we tried projecting on the mural and were pleasantly surprised to find that using a black background allowed us to project words onto the mural. The overall effect is that we are aided in our worship without having the overall aesthetic of the church affected at all. In fact, the effect is one that seems, in my opinion, to aid our worship even more. So, here is an image of some words projected onto the mural located on the "chancel" wall at Ascension.