Use of technology in worship - a (hopefully) non-polemical thread
Gamma Gamaliel
Shipmate
in Purgatory
This comes from a tangent on another thread about the use of digital countdown devices/projections to mark the beginning of services in some churches.
It raised questions in my mind about the use of technology in worship and what is or isn't helpful or acceptable in that context - or contexts as it will inevitably vary across different styles and traditions.
The bottom-line of course that it is up to those involved in those contexts to determine how to utilise technology but are there general principles that apply across the board?
Here's an example from within my own circles. Clergy and choirs have recently started reading from tablets, phones and other electronic devices during services and I understand some diktats or 'canons' have been issued or adopted in some quarters proscribing their use on the grounds that it's easier to miss words or phrases on screen.
I can understand that as I've done that recently myself when responding to what other Shipmates have written.
I'm not sure there's a blanket-ban or whether clergy aren't aware of any proscriptions and are ignoring them, but I still see clergy using such devices.
Whatever the case there is a practical reason given rather than, 'This is new, we don't like it, let's ban it.'
There is a rationale there whether we agree with it or not.
We can't avoid subjective responses though. I don't have an issue with the words of hymns or prayers being projected on screens in those churches that go in for that- but must confess to unease at the digital countdown thing and the way 'adverts' for future events keep popping up during the services or notices.
That's a purely aesthetic and 'taste' thing on my part, particularly if the service is taking place in an historic church building. I really don't like seeing obtrusive wires, screens, monitors and drum kits behind perspex screens in settings like that but hey... it's not my decision and nobody's saying that because I don't like them other people shouldn't.
But is there a 'line' and where do we draw it? Are there principles we can apply and what might they include or cover?
Clearly things like accessibility, legibility and auditory considerations should apply.
Are there other criteria and what should they be?
It raised questions in my mind about the use of technology in worship and what is or isn't helpful or acceptable in that context - or contexts as it will inevitably vary across different styles and traditions.
The bottom-line of course that it is up to those involved in those contexts to determine how to utilise technology but are there general principles that apply across the board?
Here's an example from within my own circles. Clergy and choirs have recently started reading from tablets, phones and other electronic devices during services and I understand some diktats or 'canons' have been issued or adopted in some quarters proscribing their use on the grounds that it's easier to miss words or phrases on screen.
I can understand that as I've done that recently myself when responding to what other Shipmates have written.
I'm not sure there's a blanket-ban or whether clergy aren't aware of any proscriptions and are ignoring them, but I still see clergy using such devices.
Whatever the case there is a practical reason given rather than, 'This is new, we don't like it, let's ban it.'
There is a rationale there whether we agree with it or not.
We can't avoid subjective responses though. I don't have an issue with the words of hymns or prayers being projected on screens in those churches that go in for that- but must confess to unease at the digital countdown thing and the way 'adverts' for future events keep popping up during the services or notices.
That's a purely aesthetic and 'taste' thing on my part, particularly if the service is taking place in an historic church building. I really don't like seeing obtrusive wires, screens, monitors and drum kits behind perspex screens in settings like that but hey... it's not my decision and nobody's saying that because I don't like them other people shouldn't.
But is there a 'line' and where do we draw it? Are there principles we can apply and what might they include or cover?
Clearly things like accessibility, legibility and auditory considerations should apply.
Are there other criteria and what should they be?
Comments
I've never been keen on the amplification of live singing in church, for example. If your music is so loud that singing can't be heard without amplification then the music should be quieter.
We've used recorded music and words on screen since covid; we lost our last organist shortly prior and had sung unaccompanied briefly before lockdown. We could return to unaccompanied singing but I think the online experience for those who are housebound is probably better as-is. We've also had to get used to, in the absence of a resident minister, services being led remotely, either pre-recorded or via video call. Were I in an Anglican setting I would advise reverting to a set lay-led liturgy with only the sermon provided remotely but Kirk custom frowns on fixed liturgy and requires e.g. prayers of confession to be composed or selected each week. So technology is our lifeline but at the same time a poor substitute for a living breathing minister and musicians. The traditionalist in me (even though it's not my tradition) is tempted to revert to unaccompanied metrical psalms and paraphrases.
I have no problem with readers or musicians having their material on tablets. This can in fact be useful - for instance, I recently went to a classical string quartet concert where the players "turned the pages" by pressing on a foot button. (Wouldn't work for a pianist!)
What I do dislike is people reading the Lessons from their phones. Apart from anything else they struggle to read the text unless they hold it up close to their face.
We have a left foot! It's only the right we're using most of the time. Now organists... (mind you, they expect us to operate foot presets and the swell pedal(s) as well as playing notes, so...)
Tablets would be better for that. Larger screen.
A more generous interpretation would be that the title is a 'note to self' to remind me to behave appropriately.
Whatever the motivation in my 'starting all these threads', it won't do Shipmates nor myself any harm if I adhere to a trajectory whereby I don't engage in gratuitous criticism of anyone else's way of doing things.
If the title is inauspicious then let's concentrate on the practical and pragmatic issues alluded to in the OP and which both @Arethosemyfeet and @Baptist Trainfan have picked up on in their responses.
They have both made very valid points from their own contexts and principles that can apply more broadly such as technology serving an essential purpose - however that is defined in each case.
FWIW I don't have a problem with people reading from handheld electronic devices in my own context but can understand why there might be objections.
I bristle a bit when people read from mobile phones at open-mic poetry readings, not because I think it's intrinsically 'wrong' but for the reasons Baptist Trainfan identifies in a church context.
It speaks of continuity and contemporaneity.
To be consistent I should really extend that to trailing wires, monitors, screens and drum kits in ancient church buildings but consistency has never been my strong point ...
Confession over. Back to the OP.
When it comes to churches, the most disruptive technology that comes to mind is the printing press, although it disrupted some church Traditions more than others.
And regardless of the intended purpose, technology has a habit of changing those who use it in ways that aren't envisaged.
The average 'historic church building' often fares better with a charismatic congregation who will at least do some level of upkeep. The default is an assortment of badly cleaned tat and the sometimes functional remains of early 20th century heating / lighting / electrical installations.
There's no reason for this to be the case if they are run well -- plenty of venues - including those reliant on volunteers - are able to run sound tech competently
The introduction of screens was the last straw to a Director of Music who really only liked traditional hymns. He hated playing the more “ modern” ones which were in the hymn book, and feared that screens would introduce more and worse.( But like most situations, there was more to this than meets the eye. He had become disabled and was in a lot of pain, and it was time for him to retire anyway.)
Minister: There seems to be something wrong with this microphone.
Congregation: And also with you.
I agree with the point raised above that technology must serve the service and not lead. I often say that it has worked best when it hasn't been noticed.
Before we acquired two organists/pianists, who between them cover practically every sung service, we used a laptop, connected to the speakers via our Dutch electronic organ (a Johannus). I put all the music from our default hymnbook, plus quite a few other items, onto the said laptop, so that I could construct folders for every Sunday Parish Mass and (monthly) Evensong & Benediction.
On the whole, this worked well, and I think they've continued to employ a laptop in case of emergency! I actually quite enjoyed this task - in those days (pre-Covid) I was present every Sunday and Holyday - and our ever punctilious FatherInCharge always thanked me for my efforts on days when no organist was available.
No screens at Our Place, though it would be perfectly possible to suspend a suitable screen over the chancel, should they decide to go down that road.
On a slightly related note, but not to worship, Our Place now has a card reader, to allow The Faithful to contribute to the collection without using actual cash. AIUI, this is now common practice.
I am starting to use a tablet with a page-turn pedal. My sight isn't as good as it was and I find the dots easier to read when they are back-lit.
I would not be happy to worship in a church with screens. To my mind they are visually intrusive and introduce an unliturgical visual focus. The thing with a hymn book or sheet is that you can put it down when not in use, but screens are always there in view unless you have the added distraction of them winding up and down during the service.
Words on a screen do have the advantage for folk unfamiliar with church, which is that they don't have to flick through the pages of a prayer book, hymn book and weekly bulletin to be able to join in. Of course this is obviated if you can produce a complete service booklet for every service, but many churches can't run to that.
We only use a card reader for church fairs etc, but we do have a QR code and sign displayed near the entrance to the sanctuary so that people can give using their mobile phones. I don't know if any do, though.
Many of the ones I've come across were originally hand-pumped, to which electric motors were later added, either as blowers or sometimes just operating the hand pump using a wire looped over the handle. The hand-pump mechanism was often retained - I don't know if anyone else here remembers pumping a church organ by hand. (I can't remember the precise circumstances.)
Thats true. And it very much depends on the style of worship. There is a world of difference between having an altar as the focal point and having a band.
I don't mind screens at the front nearly as much as phone use - like in the cinema, I find it to be distracting. However, I recognise that a lot of people use their phones for assistive tech so I know this is a me thing rather than something about how church should be.
Our screen is a cheap cloth portable one but I think we've done a reasonable job of siting it such that it leaves the communion table front and centre. In fact, because it shows what is going out on our livestream, outwith the hymns it is always showing whoever is leading that part of the service, either at the lectern or the communion table. I think if I had a more expansive budget I'd like something like this:
https://intelligentglass.net/portfolio/projection-screens/
Obviously, that something much easier to achieve in a new build.
Things like QR-codes and electronic payments have subsequently been mentioned.
I also take on board your comment about wealthier charismatic congregations looking after old buildings if they use them. Mind you, I know of one that is having lots of issues with the Victorian Society which won't let them interfere with the interior as much as they'd like.
Incidentally, I'd say the same about Orthodox parishes that take over redundant Anglican or other church buildings and insensitively slap an iconostasis across some of its best features.
I'd like to see more architectural imagination and respect all ways round.
It's none of my business I know but I don't object to worship band gear, drum kits, screens and so forth in independent charismatic evangelical settings or in a Baptist, Pentecostal or other 'non-Anglican' church but it does grate with me to some extent to see altars blocked by these things in Anglican churches.
You can say it's got nothing to do with me as I'm not Anglican but even so ...
I have seen some very impressive interior refurbishments of Anglican churches recently where there is an eye on hiring the space for community use which work well in my view. There are screens and so on but they are unobtrusive and fit in well.
It's all about context.
It is possible for us to use recorded music, but we rarely have to as we have three organists (though two of us are married to each other, so occasionally there’s a service nobody can cover).
Some people read from phones or tablets, others from paper. I’m not aware of anyone who objects to this. I preach from my iPad.
It is often useful to be able to use the screen as a focal point - for example, displaying a painting of a Bible scene someone is preaching about. Or showing a brief clip of children singing from the school in Uganda that we help to support.
I’m perfectly happy with low tech/no tech services, but if the technology is there we might as well discover its advantages. Facilities such as a display screen, WiFi and comfortable chairs also mean that we can more easily rent the space out to external groups on weekday mornings, which helps us to remain solvent.
Many older churches also have interiors painted white (or are made from light-coloured stone), so I'm sure it could be done in older churches quite easily and I can see how it would be effective. I think I like the idea rather better than having actual screens.
Which is equally a technology, although we choose not to see it as such.
Roll on government funding for the arts then.
What we have trouble with is our lectern, which is too tall for people under, say, 5'8" at a minimum to be seen and heard by the congregation. That means our readers, who are at present all women, have to settle for being invisible. I don't mind it myself, but I loathe having to yank the flexible microphone a mile downward so that people can hear me read. And I'm the tallest of the lot. (Yes, I've thought of putting a step behind the thing, but it's already on a step upward, and raising this would mean interfering with the built-in seat for the liturgist that comes off the whole structure sideways. What fool designed this set up?)
There is no other sensible place for anyone to read the lessons, with the exception of front-and-center on the steps before the altar. And from what I know of the pastor, who dislikes me, I wouldn't dare to ask. Grrrrrr.
Who chooses not to see an icon-screen as a piece of technology?
I recognise icons, lecterns, pulpits and any other form of fittings and fixtures there might be as pieces of ecclesiastical 'kit' - they might not be electronic but they are certainly a form of technology.
Government funding for the arts would be very welcome and it would be interesting to see what criteria would be used for any grants for churches that were made available that way.
It could become a minefield with polarised views on what artworks or architectural styles are deemed acceptable or otherwise in church contexts - accusations of 'wokerati' preoccupations on the one hand or ultra-traditional 'safeness' on the other.
How any government funding or influence would elide such 'culture wars' would be a conundrum. I look at that 'military' cathedral in Russia and shudder.
But then Hanoverian hatchments, military memorials and all sorts of 'classist' feudal and aristocratuc stuff adorn parish churches the length and breadth of the land.
No space is 'neutral'.
I recognise that architectural imagination comes at a price. There are no magic elves.
I quite like the way we've cobbled things together in our parish from panels donated by a convent that closed down, various cast-off pieces of choir stall and carved wooden bits and bobs from other churches and whatever came to hand.
It doesn't all cohere but it 'works' and we were all hacked off when the bishop, on a bad-hair day, insisted we spend money to make the icon screen more 'regular'.
We reached an imaginative compromise and came up with a solution that both satisfied him and which didn't delve too deeply into our funds. It also gave some work to our sub-deacon who struggles to make a living from iconography and wood-carving.
We are none of us going to get everything 'right' for everyone, and we are all going to have to deal with constraints of one form or other but we somehow have to deal with whatever we've got be it a hired scout-hut or listed medieval building.
Tangent
Ah! IIRC and I haven’t been for a few years, you can climb the tower and get brilliant views of the Norfolk countryside. Don’t remember anything about a hand pumped organ but I definitely remember the views.
Our lectern is a free standing chunk of rather solid wood that is similarly too tall for most users if on the same level as them. Fortunately this was resolved in the dim and distant past by the construction of a box matching the height of the first of two steps up to the front of the church, allowing the lectern to rest on the lower step.
The Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones told the story of going to conduct worship in a chapel he'd not visited before. He met with the Deacons before the service, and was somewhat discomfited by one who seemed to be looking him up and down - until he said, "Two boxes, I think". The chapel had three boxes to place in the pulpit and used the appropriate number for the height of the preacher.
I was referring to to the building and 'some of its best features', which probably were in their time things that people contested.
The point is that 'architectural imagination' doesn't just bubble up autochthonously out of the population. It has to be taught.
I don't really think it's getting off the point -- in their time they were new technology that emphasised particular parts of the service (some would say in contrast to others).
That said, I do think that some aesthetic expressions/criteria can develop serendipitously or from within particular communities in an autochthonous way (great word, I had to look it up but will use it shamelessly from now on).
In doing so they develop in 'dialogue' with whatever the prevailing rules or standards happen to be.
For instance, I've seen Romanian folk-art icons that don't at all conform to standard Orthodox expectations but which are nevertheless accepted and 'blessed' for ecclesial use.
There's also the development of a more soft-edged iconography at the Monastery of St John The Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex. Saint Sophrony sent the nuns into London to evening classes in painting frescoes. Something went 'wrong' when they came to apply the paint to the plaster leading to a soft-edged style unusual in Orthodox iconography.
The style 'stuck' and has now become pretty standard there and in some Russian-tradition parishes in the UK. A nun told me how many Greek and Eastern Mediterranean visitors to the monastery are puzzled by them as they don't conform to their more Byzantine style expectations.
There's no shortage of funds at Tolleshunt Knights by the looks, judging by the very wonderful round church they've had built using some initial designs by Saint Sophrony himself.
Even if we aren't as well funded as they are, I think there are ways we can do the best with what we have.
After our time in restorationist charismatic circles, my late wife and I joined a Baptist church-plant which met in a hired school hall. Ok, we weren't strong on aesthetics but I was always struck by how much difference a few banners, flowers and t-lights made.
I recently attended a very simple Mass in the parlour of an RC religious-house shared by 3 nuns. It was lovely. I'm sure the aesthetics there had been designed by someone well-taught and who knew what they were doing.
I'm afraid I'm going to go all both/and again ...
In our parish we've had to make-do and mend but our subdeacon is a trained iconographer so it's a mix of improvisation and formal training.
My younger daughter had her wedding reception in a simple community hall. My elder daughter is very arty and graphically trained. She produced simple but effective displays and place-settings etc.
If we are going to wait for government funding for the arts we may be waiting a lo-oo-oo-oong time. We've all got to be a bit DIY. That doesn't mean there can't be some pedagogical or formal artistically-trained input.
It strikes me that, for many people, the use of technology is completely normalised. To attend a church which doesn't appear to use it may seem alien or even off-putting - although that could also be regarded as a challenging counter-cultural statement/
Conversely, there are people who are seeking a refuge from an overly technological world. Even if it's only for a short time, a "non-technology" church will be very attractive to them.
Stop talking about me! When our splendid and faithful organist is away we have to rely on a clever gizmo to play along with our croaked out traditional hymns. They occasionally trust me to press the buttons. It's awful.
@Baptist Trainfan, there are certainly young people who are attracted to Orthodoxy or traditional RC parishes for 'Luddite' reasons.
I've spoken to some who disparage more 'contemporary' style services for the use of gizmos and so on who nevertheless seem to spend all their time listening to podcasts, watching Orthodox (or Interdox
They might think they are taking refuge from modern technology to some extent but in reality they are just as influenced by it - or addicted to it - as anyone else.
I know of people who've come back from visits to Orthodox monasteries disappointed that they've seen monks or nuns using mobile phones.
That's because computers are still really bad at playing musical instruments.
And hymn books sometimes include the tune. Words on screens never do. Invaluable when a hymn is unfamiliar.
I think there is certainly scope for 'fasting' from technology or the use of mobile phones and so on for spiritual purposes, such as on a retreat or a pilgrimage etc.
In terms of church services, again, it all depends on context.
We don't have hymn books in our parish as we don’t sing hymns in the 'western' sense. We do have copies of the Creed and pre-communion prayers available for those who want to use then, if they are unfamiliar with them or haven't memorised them.
I was booted off the choir but do sing along with much of the service as I'm familiar with most of the words - although there are specific 'hymns' for particular days that I'm not familiar with.
If I visited @Baptist Trainfan's church for instance I'd sing along with the hymns and wouldn't 'object' to however the technology is used there as I'm sure it fits the context and the particular Christian tradition it represents.
That wouldn't necessarily mean I'd want to import those things to my own context, not because I think they are 'wrong' but because it wouldn't be the way we do things.