SCL

Dude, you would love The Basement. It’s a service we do every week in Birmingham, AL.

Check it out here.

‘kay… but why is it better for people to think “concert,” which is a secular connotation, than “worship” which is a beautiful and intimate connection with God? Why is that a good thing…?

Katie’s comments are a little touchy-feely for my taste, but generally I concur. Lasers at church? Seriously? WTF? (see post #31) What’s next? Will our churches offer a “Laser Rock & Roll” outreach night to the stoner crowd only to bum them out by playing Switchfoot instead of Pink Floyd?

Yeah, I’m not sure I’m a fan of the flashiness…

the lasers put the emphasis on spectacle, remove it from God. i don’t think that is ever “okay” or “cool.”

corporate worship – aka a church service – is about coming together as one body to praise and thank God for Him. it’s NOT about us and the most current beats and riffs. it’s most certainly not to cheer on our Brothers and Sisters because they can sing or play the guitar well.

seriously . . . i went to a ginormous church with a friend’s girlfriend. i got confused because i was 100% sure i was at a rock show. the “congregation” [read, audience] was screaming for the individual guitarists, and there were so many lasers, strobe lights, and smoke machines that i got dizzy! that’s not outreach to a younger, more hip audience [i'm 20, btw]. that’s compromising worship and compromising God.

From a church lighting director:

I am yet to use (or see) a laser in a worship environment…..

We have 16 moving lights (or intelligent lights) in our Sanctuary…. in fact we were the first church in our town to own moving lights. Its really hard to balance the whole worship versus rock show thing.

As much as I love technology and A/V stuff – I don’t want to attend a concert on Sunday…. I want to attend a worship service.

We have a Sunday AM service that the moving lights don’t actually move that much they more or less splash patterns or color around the stage… Our PM service (which is geared to the 20-30’s crowd – but its just like the AM service except we dim the house lights during worship) I do a lot more “dynamic” things with the lights – I try my best to have reverence for what the worship leaders are trying to accomplish on stage and not make my spinning dots behind the worship leader that match the trendy spinning graphics on the powerpoint screens the center of attention

There is a “cooler” church in town that has about twice the technology as mine, and people are flocking to it and it is a rock show and a party every time you step through the doors – I can’t deal with it… I need church (for me at least) to look and feel like church.

my husband and i used to go to a church that met in a high school auditorium and was all about small groups and community and being real with one another (kind of like the church in Acts). then they got their new building and all this A/V equipment, and it turned into the Jesus Show (every song had flashing lights set to its beat, an unseen man would read Bible verses in a booming GOD voice while the lights turned the ‘audience’ into a veritable mountain, ocean, etc…). no one called us back when we signed up for their youth ministry, nursery, or website ministry, small groups slowly disbanded, and we (along with about 80% of the people we knew – most of them young, ‘hip’ college students, like us) stopped going there because we missed true fellowship and worship. eventually, even the worship pastor resigned because he felt like everything was going to his head, and he was defaming God every week. but, you know, some people prefer the anonymity of churches that don’t care about anything but appearances. they’d rather be entertained than challenged to live a holy life in community with others, reaching out to the needy in their area and being Jesus on the streets. be that the case, you should totally check out Brentwood in Lynchburg, VA. you’re sure to get a great “concert experience” every sunday, no confrontation or conviction attached.

I think it’s a bad thing. I think having big production values are a frivolous waste of resources, and the ‘concert’ aspect of it makes it feel more like a performance and alienates the congregation, making them feel like the audience instead of God.

God’s not as impressed with rockin’ guitar riffs as we are, he’s more concerned with where our heart is during the time of worship.

Ok, I have walked out of churches because they have made worship into a concert. I think that the flash takes away from the worshipfulness of the entire thing when there is suddenly a barrage of a crazy light show.

I mean, I do appreciate a good worship concert, but that is different, you are going there expecting a concert atmosphere. On Sunday morning, when you are there for a Sunday service, it is just distracting (though, it probably could be at a worship concert as well, but then, you know what you are getting into). And we have enough distractions from God in our life that we don’t need our worship services doing that for us.

I have studied word origins for years. here is a fact. Years ago, the word “fun” was considered a cuss word! You were a potty mouth and SINNING if you said FUN. Indeed you were on your way to blazes!

So if it was a cuss word then, is it not STILL a cussword?

The point? Words (ALL words) are simply conglomerations of phonetic sounds. It’s the meaning we inject into them that makes them “good” or “bad”.

So then, exactly what is a cuss word? What makes a word evil?

I won’t answer that. Y’all decide.

From a church lighting director (another one – we’re small but mighty).

The #1 thing that I tell my volunteers and that guides my decisions in terms of lighting weekend services is “we are not allowed to be cheesy. Never. Ever. At all.” If you can’t tell me how that effect contributes to exalting the Lord and amplifying worship, then you don’t get to do it.

I don’t have lasers. We occasionally use moving lights. But more often then not, we do subtle very very well. Less light can be as effective as more light.

Bottom line is that the church needs to do a better job of doing production well – and generally, that involves more training, more passion, more time, and more willingness to be moved by the Lord. Look at the Renaissance – where your stained glass comes out of. The church used to lead culture in art, and now we’ve grown used to trying to just lag behind not far enough that we don’t get labeled as irrelevant.

Lights don’t make church relevant – they can only draw attention to something that truly is relevant.

If you’re going to church to see the lights, may I suggest that the problem is not with your church but your heart?

I will take “the Lord moved” any day over “that was cool.”

Isn't it enough to have lights that are in the ceiling and also turn on? i don't need nor do I want a "mood" to be set. That bothers me. What does God require of man during a church service? Answer that and you find all the answers to what should or shouldn't be included during ANY par of the service. Dim the light's and I'm outta there. It's a church. Not a highschool dance.

Father of lights?

We don't have lasers…I am SO going to talk to our production lead about this! Although we do have a group of guys that gather to record and produce a mini intro video for every sermon series we do. That's pretty sweet!

But…but…but…I LIKE stained glass:(

Well, first post I’ve read that I’m not giggy with.