Guidelines of Media Use in Church
Although statistics show that the fastest growing Church’s today incorporates multimedia to spread the Message and as a growth tool,
It continues to be a lightning rod of debate for Spiritual leadership either for or against it.
Once only seen as a part of Contemporary Worship services which draw a younger audience, it has trickled down into traditional worship services too.
Among the numerous debates is whether this Media enhances Worship Services or makes it more entertaining so that people will come to services.
Just like with everything else in life moderation and practice can bring about surprising results.
Spiritual leaders who understand the distractions of life that are offered to this generation in the forms of music videos, concerts, web-casting, the internet, I-tunes, pod casting, and video games, need to learn how to adapt these technologies into their strategy for getting the Word to them in a way that will stay with them beyond the church door.
There are Spiritual leaders that can see the benefits of this technology in service but due to their lack confidence on how they may sound or look they will not be receptive to it at all.
How much Media that you wish to embrace depends on the comfort level of the Spiritual leader towards it and whether they view it as a positive or negative change. For some having a CD of the message available after the service ends will be as far as they are willing to go.
The introduction of video cameras brings about another line of debate concerning privacy rights of worship members along with the change of ambience due to the additional equipment such as lighting, tripods or booms needed in order to get quality video to use for DVD’s, web casting or television broadcast.
Whether using professional technical staff or volunteers it necessary that they understand goals and expectations to be accomplished through use of this Media for enhancing Word.
Getting an idea of the best practices of Media ministries in your area would be a good place to start and use these in accordance to the wishes of your Spiritual leadership and adapt where necessary for your Ministries goals.
Multimedia is a combination sound, visual and video elements
When multimedia is used correctly to enhance the Worship experience for participants of the service, the results can have far reaching effect whether in person, satellite church’s or over the internet.
Church’s who started off using it to display songs and announcements have found out that utilizing it to display the sermon notes, scriptures and Church PowerPoint
displays and engages the visual element which allows the audience to participate making it personal to them.
Scenes from various movies and plays have been used by Pastor’s have been used to introduce or reinforce topics that they are speaking or teaching about giving a relevant connection from this generation to the Biblical translation of this subject.
Church PowerPoint are software programs designed specifically for Scripture displays, and may include scenes from major topics that can be used to enhance the display of topics such as the Resurrection, parting of the Red Sea, etc.
Since music plays a large part of many Worship services, it is essential that high quality sound become a major element.
Whether traditional chorus or contemporary gospel, or rock the lyrics and music must be distinguishable without destroying the sound level for participants.
There is no substitute for quality equipment from microphones, cables, amplifiers, mixers, to speakers, the initial cost may seem overwhelming but the long term return on investment is made up through the enjoyment of Worship participants.
Multimedia technology in Worship allows the church to spread the message beyond the walls and to reach those who may never set foot within, just as the Bible calls for us to do.
