Let's Talk about Projection in Worship

Projection technology has, for the most part, become ubiquitous in the world of business, academic, and scientific communication. Managers make pitches with clicker in hand. Professors deliver lectures from projected outlines. Engineers present findings to the team via PowerPoint. Projection technology has made its way into the church’s activities of preaching and worship too.

Those of us working on the WELS Hymnal Project have sensed that projection is an area where digital technology can exert a pronounced effect on the worship practices in our church body. Once installed, the projection system usually becomes the single most prominent digital technology in the sanctuary. For that reason alone the technology deserves careful consideration. Furthermore, the Technology Committee and the Executive Committee have recently taken up the task of deciding what sort of digital products to introduce with the new hymnal. Since our decisions about such technologies will shape worship practices for thousands of people we want to give this topic the careful thought it deserves. To assist us in our decision-making we are engaging congregations in a dialogue on the topic of projection in worship.

I believe that the time is right for such a dialogue. Digital technology has fully diffused into our culture and society. Everyone and their mother, as the idiom goes, uses such technology on a daily basis. The sort of communication, creativity, and efficiency that digital technology delivers is breathtaking. But we are also beginning to notice how the bright possibility of digital technology casts a shadow of its own.

Together we are learning that technology is a transaction. We gain certain benefits—sometimes amazing benefits, but we also relinquish something in exchange. The trick, of course, is to accurately assess the transactional cost of a technology and then to deliberate whether what we give up is worth what we receive.

We want to better understand what that transaction looks like as congregations adopt more prominent digital technologies in their worship life, particularly the large-format projection screen. Our dialogue will identify the benefits that congregations seek to gain from projection, while also increasing our understanding of what congregations may give up in exchange.

The dialogue began recently when we sent a follow-up survey to all the congregations who previously indicated to us that they regularly used projection in worship. We noted at the time that 17% of congregations reported the practice of projecting some or all of the service onto a large-format screen. Our first survey only asked some basic questions about what congregations projected, now we want to gather more information about how projection is used in worship. We also hope to gain some insights into the attitudes, emotions, and philosophies that surround the practice.

The survey is just the first step in the dialogue. We will publish more blog posts on the topic in the future and announce further opportunities to participate in the dialogue. In a year’s time we will have a wide range of insights to offer based on the dialogue. Our hope and goal is that through this conversation our church body be well-equipped to make wise decisions about projection in worship.