Young people tell me that a lot of the high-tech worship is "cheesy." Yet adults think that such worship is what "kids" want. Ironically, older adults tend over time to be greater supporters of the use of PowerPoint and video in worship than do younger members... Young people witness some of the cheesy video and computer "art" in worship and they see it for what it is: kitsch. Stock clip art. Old-fashioned, 19th-century background images under song text: the sun shining on the Cross, running streams, baby faces -- all of the stereotypical images that say, "Christians are crummy artists and naive sentimentalists." To them, such kitsch is like handing out illustrated kids' Bibles to high school students and telling them that these images represent the depth of insight and excellence of the Christian faith.
Obviously, the greatest danger in the use of technology in worship is not just that it be cheesy; if it's not well thought-out, it can easily be downright misleading. I remember hearing a recording of Bob Kauflin lecturing at SBTS in which he commented that he's not a big fan of images in worship for various reasons. A background image of clouds, he said, doesn't help us think of holiness--the cross of Christ helps us think of holiness. Clouds just make us feel, well, dreamy. But isn't that way more typical of what we see in worship service across the country?
We take great care to make sure that what is communicated from the pulpit be the intentional, studied, faithful preaching of the word of God, and rightly so! If a picture is worth a thousand words, why would we let the images we introduce on our worship be chosen and prepared by someone who is less a theologian?
