Technology in Worship: Pixel or Perish

I found an article in the Arizona Republic recently titled "Technology Advocate tells Pastors: Pixel or Perish". I found the original online article here.

I don't think I found anything incredibly new or exciting here, but I wanted to share it.

I think the one part that stood out for me is this quote:

"People under 50 don't remember what they hear," he said. "They remember what they see. If you look at a church that's dying, they have nothing for the eye."

I'm really interested in use of worship visuals to aid in making a connection between worship and personal discipleship. I think the visual aspect is a key element to worship.

Here's an interesting warning though:

"But if screens in churches have become ubiquitous, too many use them to project sermon notes or song lyrics...That becomes so deadly...Why put more words on the screen? The human brain needs access to a lot of information and can handle it. Action, movement, makes it more dimensional."

There's definitely a fine line between too-little and too-much.

Why Anxious?

Naming something new is always hard. When I was coming up with a name for this blog last week I was trying to think of something technical at first. But I knew that I wanted to discuss other things that were perhaps less technical, but still related to outreach ministry.

So I decided I wanted a name that would reflect my general state of being. Number one - I'd like to be a disciple. Our church's ministry is about making passionate disciples. Check. Secondly, I also wanted to describe the passion I feel about my personal ministry of trying to help our church with technology. But at the same time, I wanted to reflect some sense of how overwhelmed I can feel.

While running through words in my head the word "Anxious" came up. Sure, I feel anxious a lot - I'm sure anyone who knows me can tell you that. Being anxious can often be thought of as a bad thing. Dictionary.com says

uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried

Well, OK, maybe a little extreme, but I have worry and fear some times when faced with the "great unknown" of technology for Christ.

But, here's the cool part. Anxious can also mean

earnestly desirous; eager

So...bingo. At the same time, I feel fearful and worried, but also very eager and passionate about what I'm doing. So, I'm the anxious disciple.

What's all this then?

So, then. It's the first post. The "hello world" program. The Initial Program Load.

Why am I doing this? Well, good question. I don't imagine many people will read this, and I think that's one reason I haven't started a blog before now.

For the longest time, I thought that blogs were primarily meant for other people. Over the last few weeks, however, I've been reading lots of other blogs, and I've come to the realization that blogs can be useful for organizing personal thoughts and writing things down. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so I suppose its not shocking that I haven't realized this before.

I decided to start this blog because I wanted a place to write down, keep track of, and organize random thoughts about my involvement with technology and media ministry in our church.

Over the last year or so, I've been working in creating a web site for our church. I'm interested in web2.0 and exploring new ways of doing outreach through the internet and the web. I don't feel I'm "there" yet at all.

So I plan to use this blog to mention other stuff I've found that I like, write down where I'm at, and maybe where I'm not at either. So there you go.