This is not going to be a technical piece, so if you’re looking for advice on lighting design and which flavor haze causes your vocalists the least amount of anguish (1 part raspberry surprise, 1 part Wise Man Myrrh makes Holy Lord Anointing Fire Haze, perfect for ushering in the Holy Spirits) look in the Training section.
This is about a personal quirk that I suspect many other creatives share, but may not know how to articulate.
I love production. I mean, capital-L love. I admire the work that goes into it and the effect it has when it’s done right. The following statement is risky, but not “Donald Miller risky.” I’m not going to talk about living in a commune in the woods or anything. I’m not that crazy…
Here it is: I think I worship just as much through effective production as I do through lyric and song.
Throw me in the blasphemy box (or tank. Whichever format your church uses).
It’s true, though. I remember my first Hillsong concert in 2006. It’s a lot like a first kiss experience. I didn’t know what to do with my hands and I kept my eyes open almost the whole time.
That was my first “high production” experience and I was in awe. It was like catching a glimpse of what heaven is like, but with slightly flat vocals. (This was 2006, remember…)
Since then, Hillsong’s vocalists have improved, and I have continued to grow in my love for quality production. I similize it this way: “Does that lyric or guitar lick strike a chord (pun) in your soul? Well great! That last lighting cue does the same thing for me!”
I realize that may be a foreign concept for some, but the more I examine it, the more liberating I find it becomes.
Rewind to 2012. My wife, 2 friends and I had the opportunity to see Radiohead in Atlanta (David Crowder AND David Byrne were there, so it’s okay to be jealous). In the middle of Weird Fishes, I found myself worshipping God. To a Radiohead song. Well, to the production on top of the song.
That may sound strange, but that level of intention to stir an emotional response by the production team hit me hard, and my reaction was to worship God.
Listen, I know not every creative person responds this way, but I’m submitting for your consideration that I think it’s okay if you do. That’s something I’ve decided for myself anyway. But that decision does come with some stipulations.
I’m careful to worship GOD, and not the LD. I’m intentional about talking with God during these times of worship. It’d be easy to become so emotionally lost in the sensory overload that you mistake euphoria for a connection with God, so I’m careful to remain focused on Him.
With all this self-discovery, I’m realizing the liberating fact that I can worship God on a Sunday morning, at a Radiohead concert, watching the ‘Where the Light Is’ DVD 100 times, or literally anything else. Production resonates with me in a unique way and if it does the same with you, that’s okay!
I’d be very interested to hear any similar experiences in the comments!
I fully agree. There is something beautiful that happens when all of the song lyrics are up correctly, the lyric backgrounds match beautifully with what our lighting tech has displayed, and then you see how your video team has landed on a shot that literally captures the essence and beauty of the God moment and lyrics on film….it’s another level. It causes me to pause. It makes me say “thank you God”, and I mentally hope that this level of work is encouraging others to praise God. People ways thank the singers for helping people to worship, but I’d like to thank the front and back of the house crew too. Loved this piece!
Thanks, Kristen!
I agree, our production teams should get as much credit as our worship leaders.
Hey, man. Interesting thoughts here.
I totally get where you’re coming from and have had similar experiences as well.
I think I’ve come to a place, though, where I much prefer a more stripped-down environment. Now, don’t hear me wrong; there is nothing in and of itself bad about production in church. I’ve been in it for a long time and have great memories of growing to know God and friends through it, but I think that one of the things I’ve come to realize is that environment doesn’t matter all that much. In fact, I think it can hurt a lot of times more than it can help.
The thing is, when you are constantly bombarded with the sensory onslaught of lights, fog, noise (I’ve always been in the louder=better camp, btw) we can actually become so accustomed to a certain set of conditions that we lose our ability to worship outside of those. If the lighting doesn’t dim quite on time, the “transition” from song to song isn’t smooth (I’ve grown to hate the prevalence of that word in church), the room isn’t quite dark enough, or the music is too soft for me to sing with all my might, my worship is hindered. We can become unaccustomed to silence. Uncomfortable in it. Compare every other worship “experience” to that other one. In the end, it can become very people-centered, instead of God-centered.
I mean, let’s be honest: when we’re focusing on lights, transitions, environmental factors, we’re doing that for the people to have an experience. It’s not, “LORD, may these lights honor you.” “May these smooth transitions please you.” It’s “This lighting effect is really going to pull on people’s hearts.” and “That transition between song 1 & 2 is going to help people stay in an atmosphere of worship.” We’re creating an environment. We’re not worshipping.
And, in the end, it really can become detrimental when the Church becomes conditioned to an experience. Because when that experience doesn’t happen again like it did last week, we don’t know how to find the Lord. And unfortunately, we often need to know how to find him when we’re in the worst of environments. The worship in the Psalms show that.
So long story short, production is not a bad thing in and of itself. It can be and should be part of our gatherings as believers. But let’s keep the focus of worship just giving our thanks to God. That’s what it is at heart: a “thank you” to the Lord. People don’t need any special bells and whistles to do that.
Thanks for your thoughts, Chris.
Thanks Jon.
I have to say that I love a stripped down environment. I think it can be very effective and can produce a great atmosphere for worship.
I understand your points, but think there are some pretty heavy generalizations in some of them. Of course focusing on production can be taken too far, but I’d be careful not to label the motivation for focus on production as “doing it for an experience.” And even if that is the case sometimes, I’m not sure that tailoring an environment to foster an experience with God is a bad thing.
Our job as worship leaders is to usher our congregations into God’s presence and I think that we’re at liberty to use any tools at our disposal within reason. I also think that “creating an environment” is a means to the end, which is fostering authentic worship. The same way that having church in a building is a means to an end which is staying out of the weather. Saying that when we’re creating an environment we’re not worshiping is a bit risky, and not something I think we can judge outside of ourselves.
I understand where you’re coming from and I’m even inclined to agree with you on some points. All in all, though, our job is to effectively lead people into worship of God. The other stuff comes down to demographic and preference (A thing which I believe weighs heavily in both of our posts). But all of this is not really what my post was about.
Good stuff, man. I appreciate your heart. It’s great to be able to dialogue about this stuff.
I thought i was the only one. I went to a JohnMayer concert and was completely struck by the visuals and worshipped God. I was a bit confused being i was seeing God though songs about heartbreak. It was a great experience and since i try and worship god through my church production on sundays
I have had a similar experience like that before. I was at a huge Christian fest in the summer. That day we saw all kinds of bands and then we went to the main stage for the rest of the night. So the next band had come out and they said “this is the worship band for tonight”. I was fine with them saying that. The last band that night was Switchfoot. When they started playing restless Jon said kill the lights and the only light was the bright shining moon. And the first lyrics to the song are “I am the sea on a moonless night” yet the moon was there though. In that moment the spirit had just worked through me and I was able to just worship which I hadn’t been able to earlier in the day when the “option” was there and I was just in awe!
Awesome article. I’ve seen many people say that having great production means that you are trying to “fake worship”, but this article explains exactly how I feel. God gave each of us our individual talents, and we should use those talents to worship God. Some people worship with their voice, some with their instrument. Too often overlooked or criticized are those who God has chosen to worship with production (lighting, worship videos, backgrounds, etc.).
I agree that effective production can move us. Here’s my line of thinking: God is the creator. He is the most creative entity that exists, has ever existed, will ever exist. When we, as image bearers, reflect HIS creativity with our creative efforts, we are reflecting (dimly) this aspect of God’s character. We we see a reflection of His creativity on display, it can remind us of how amazing He is.
2 cautions come to mind:
1. We must be especially careful to not worship the created over the creator (Romans 1:25). (And we must be careful to not subtly communicate that to our people).
2. (Based on your comment above, Chris Jackson) We do not “usher our congregations into God’s presence”. God is present even before we walk into the room. We are not the mediator that connects our people with the living God. JESUS IS. Our job is to show the glory of Christ to our people and trust that the Holy Spirit will move their hearts to worship. (good thoughts on this idea here: http://theresurgence.com/2010/12/29/gentlemen-we-are-not-mediators).
Thanks for your input, Brett. I definitely agree that we can only dimly reflect the creativity and glory that God possesses. It is certainly moving to see or help create environments and moments that “bring a little of heaven to earth.”
I’ll agree that we have to be careful not to worship the environments themselves. I tried to make that clear in the post.
I understand the problem with the use of the phrase, “usher,” and I may be at fault for using incorrect wording. I liked the article you linked. I have to confess, I’m not a fan of Mars Hill, but I do agree with the points the article makes. Perhaps I would have done better to reference production and worship music as the article did, as “showing them the glory of Christ.”
To me, that seems a little like a semantically fueled quip, rather than constructive debate, as I’m sure there are not many worship leaders here that would assert “No, the worship band is the conduit to the Holy Spirit!” In other words, and according to the article, we could say that we are “ushers to the usher to God’s presence,” as we could debate that “showing the glory of Christ” is a form of ushering….but there again, semantics.
I honestly did not intend to assert myself (or any production team, for that matter) as taking Jesus’ job. He’s way better at everything than I am.
At the end of the day, I think you and I are both 100% right. I’m not here to defend my semantics. Defending your word choice is bad PR. That’s one thing I learned from Donald Miller.
I have exactly this problem with joining the church worship team. Many of the old guards seem to ignore my pleas to improve the overall Worship session by “production” methods.
The lone worship leader chooses the songs (probably with church leaders but no input from us mere musicians) and give out the YouTube links and song chords on Wednesday. We arrive 90 mins ahead of worship on Sunday morning and then we go ahead to practice these songs, some are familiar while others may be totally new. Leader plays only acoustic guitar and sings (he sings good). He then sort of goes into same style strumming for all his chosen songs. No intro, and often bad abrupt endings. Nothing like the YouTube versions.
No song parts arrangements, he said he doesn’t know how to, and he also kept saying why we are there to do. To lead worship and not to make a show.
I dunno why he just allows this “sub par standard” to get by each Sunday when it could be finetuned with proper song arrangements and weekly practices. He said many of them have no time for weekly practices. I think he meant himself. I know many of us had asked for it but we were turned down even when we said we do it without him. It was rejected because they said the stage equipment was difficult to control without a properly trained soundman.
I know it is bad to air dirty laundry and even criticism my worship leader, but seriously I have made myself public enemy of him since day 1, when I said there are things to improve and I listed them out during the AGM. People thought I was overly zealous or showy.
When I relegated to play bass because bass player was missing, I was plying quite freely and joyfully. Running the bass line up and down the major scales. Then the soundman told me to TONE DOWN and play simple single notes bass line.
What?
If this is a challenge from God to test me, I would say it definitely is a big uphill climb for me.
Pray for me please.
Totally agree Chris, and was thinking about this recently too. I’m in Scotland and (as in many places in the world), we have some pretty old churches with stained glass windows and jaw dropping architecture, buildings rooted in tradition and many of them sensorial – thurible swinging (you know that incense ball which swings around and makes the room smell churchy) for example. For a while I felt so disconnected to these traditions, feeling they were over the top and unnecessary for worship, but now I realise they’re not unnecessary, just maybe outdated- they’ve been replaced by other aesthetic, sensorial tropes more impactive today, like amazing lighting, projections, production. I love that God made us all different and unique, and that for some the easiest way to connect to Him may be through silence, others to be in nature, some through production visuals and others in song. I’ve had experiences worshipping God in the most unholy of places, even stinky nightclubs packed with people who are super wasted, but places with such an overwhelming sensorial production which in some way is so aesthetically-all-consuming it actually creates a paradox of space from the clutter of this world. I think for me, the main point is that we are all different in how we connect to God, and I think that’s brilliant, we just need to figure out what is right for us as individuals.
Fantastic, Sheph. I’ve always wanted to do a high production concert inside an old gothic style church like the ones you described.