Kingdom Journalism

Shifting to “Visualcy”

• Posted by Steve K. on August 10th, 2007 filed in Uncategorized
• 1 Comment »

The Summer 2007 issue of Leadership Journal has the results of a fascinating survey of lead pastors (presumably Americans) and their use of visual media in worship services. The article asks the timely question: “How then shall we communicate?” Christianity Today’s Christian Vision Project director Andy Crouch is quoted saying, “Many centuries after the shift from oral to written culture, we are now well along in the transition to visual culture—where the predominant mode of communication is images rather than words. Just as the shift to writing required the skills we call literacy, so visual culture requires its own skills—for lack of a better word, visualcy.”

There are plenty of interesting statistics to process, but I found this paragraph of analysis particularly interesting: “Even the churches whose heritage, facilities, and budgets hamper use of technology are finding work-arounds. The trend among emerging churches to project Renaissance paintings and eclectic homemade images is making its way into all kinds of churches. Banners became “the new stained glass” in otherwise sterile Protestant sanctuaries in the 1980s. Now, video is the new new stained glass.”

Video is the new new stained glass. I like that.

The section of the article that seemed the most dramatic however—and which has the greatest implications for mission organizations, I think—is titled “Your next hire?” The implications are clear: Highly-”produced” multimedia worship services are forming people spiritually, to be sure, but also socially in such a way that they now expect very slick and “packaged” multimedia from everyone, including other ministries (such as mission agencies). This just means the pressure is higher for ministries to produce media at the same (or higher) quality than local churches. Another (positive) result is that more and more people are being trained in the local church to produce multimedia, and those people are bringing these skills with them when they go into mission service.

Fortunately, there’s a good counterbalance in the article to all this “gung-ho” multimedia excitement, from the mouth of a young filmmaker: “Don’t add video … just to impress my generation. We’ve seen it all, and we’ve seen better than you can produce. … Tell the story—whether you use multimedia or not. You can make the images come alive by telling the story. That’s what connects with my generation. They want to know the story, and they want to know you. That you believe it.”

My summary: Tell the story authentically. Video may be the way to do that. Or it may not be. But whatever the case, be authentic, show ‘em you believe it. That’s always good advice, no matter what the next shift brings our way.

UPDATE: Pastor and author Shane Hipps answers the question “What kinds of messages are well-served by video or other visual media?” in part two of an interview on Christianity Today’s “Out of Ur” blog. I’ve ordered Hipps’ book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church, and I hope to post some thoughts on it here as I get into reading it.