Shane Hipps is pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Prior to pastoral ministry, Shane had a career in advertising.
John Palmieri is a pastor of multi-cultural, multi-site, New Life Community Church in Chicago. Prior to pastoral ministry, he was involved in the food business.
Jarrett Stevens is director of the college and singles ministry, and teacher for 7|22 at North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. Previously he served as a teaching pastor for Axis at Willow Creek Community Church.
Twenty-five years ago, the film Tron told the story of video game maker Kevin Flynn who was transplanted into the virtual universe within a computer. Flynn battled sinister digital forces to survive and partnered with friendly programs to discover a way back to the real world. Today, Tron's story appears prophetic. We find ourselves in a digital universe. Technology is more than merely a tool. It permeates every part of our existence—family, work, recreation, even worship.
Initially, churches used video technology to put lyrics and images onto screens while singing. Pastors now are using these tools while preaching. PowerPoint, film clips, photos, and video are augmenting the spoken word, and in some cases replacing it. With the growth of video preaching, will the pastor, like Flynn from Tron, enter the machine and become part of a digital projection?
Some pastors resist this trend. Preaching, they contend, is a sacred act that carries power in the spoken word, person to person, apart from "the machine." But these digital iconoclasts seem to be the minority. Eager to communicate Scripture in a relevant way, most preachers are embracing the new media.
We live in a media-saturated culture and trying to be more media-savvy than the world around—that is a battle we will lose.
Tron was a revolution in filmmaking—the first movie to use digital animation extensively. But critics almost universally panned the movie. One said, "Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement."
How can preachers avoid that same trap? With our increasing ability to produce "visual delights," can we forget what matters most? How can we use technology to help, not hinder, the proclamation of God's Word? At the most recent National Pastors Convention, we brought together three pastors to discuss these questions.
What does "good preaching" mean in your church's context?
John Palmieri: Our church is in an urban setting with a multi-ethnic congregation that is about 65 percent Hispanic. We also have Indians, African-Americans, Chinese, Filipinos, Italians, and whites. Good preaching means people's lives are being changed. If I can see that, if I see the connection taking place, I consider that good preaching.
Jarrett Stevens: Ours is a multi-cultural church, too, made up of light white, darker white, and medium white—but definitely white. (Laughter.)
For us transformation is the goal of preaching. We're coming out of a time when merely presenting the text was the goal. That's still incredibly important, but now we're asking, "Does the preaching help anyone? Is it changing lives? Did the sermon help Christ be formed in people?"
Shane Hipps: The culture of my church is a 300-person Mennonite congregation and it's multi-cultural only so far as about a third are over the age of 65, a third are in midlife, and a third are under the age of 30.
When some-one enters on Sunday morning, they are coming from an image and media driven culture. I have to respect and understand that.
When I started, I was very focused on the question of effectiveness. I found myself drowning because unless I saw some really big life change happening, I felt like a failure. I had a therapist (I'll admit it), and he said to me, "Shane, I went from being an average therapist to being a really great therapist when I simply offered interventions and I stopped being invested in the outcomes." That was a big insight for me. So for me good preaching is being connected to who God's made me to be, and not investing my identity in the outcomes.
How has technology impacted the way you prepare to preach? What technologies do you use?
Palmieri: I'm part of a team of eight or nine pastors that prepare together. We gather for an awesome Bible study every Monday morning. Out of that comes the message that we all preach. For the study and preparation we depend heavily on the Internet.
Stevens: I am surgically attached to my iPod. I have 16 days and seven hours of music on it. So I'm always listening to music when I write. Some people can't do that, but I grew up with media all around me. I listen while I write. It helps me think.
Hipps: My preaching is most impacted by the technology of books. (Laughter.)
Has using visual technology ever backfired on you?
Stevens: I was speaking about worry and Jesus' words about the flowers of the field and how God cares for even the birds. During my message video clips of flowers and fields were appearing on the giant screen behind me, and there was a clip of a bird that we'd taken from stock video. It was a blackbird that looked like it was peering into your soul. It was really creeping people out. So every five minutes when the bird clip appeared, in the middle of teaching, I'd hear this reaction of fear and laughter. It was an Edgar Allan Poe moment. That creepy bird totally distracted people from the message.
How important is it to use 21st-century technology when communicating the gospel in the 21st century?
Hipps: It's important only if we understand their innate bias, because media are not neutral tools. The media are messages in themselves, and every single medium you use carries a different message embedded in it.
I occasionally use visual media and technology as a crutch to help keep what I'm saying interesting. But when an 80-year-old woman who lived through the Great Depression stood up in my congregation and told a story, she didn't use any technology, and everyone was on the edge of their seats listening to her suffering and what she lived through.
As the medium, she was infinitely more powerful than any technology I could bring.
Palmieri: I agree, to a point. Trying to more media-savvy than the world around us—that is a battle we will lose. And if I'm just trying to be "relevant," I'll probably miss the mark every time.
But it is our responsibility to be resourceful and creative. If some technology is effective for communication, like a movie clip, great—use it. But if there's a story from a person within the community, a testimony, use that instead.
We use imagery. We use technology, but only to the extent that it enhances the message. If used too often, it can become more of a distraction.
What does it mean to be incarnational as we communicate God's Word? Can incarnation happen with technology?
Stevens: Most weeks we do video interviews. That's incarnational. Bringing someone out for a live interview is much more raw and dynamic, but you have way less control. For example, we had a woman who'd recently been saved interviewed on video. She was telling her story and whenever she messed up, she dropped the f-bomb. Thankfully we could edit the video. If that had been live in the worship service, it might have been a great moment, but I doubt we could have fully recovered from it.
Hipps: Do I believe certain technologies preclude incarnational ministry? Absolutely. God came embodied in Jesus. He didn't just project his likeness. Embodiment means human physical touch; presence. And there are certain technologies that disembody us, like video.
I'm not opposed to using video in church, I just think we should recognize that it may inadvertently send a message that is counter to the incarnation.
Overall, do you think the popularity of visuals in preaching is helping or hurting the church?
Palmieri: If using imagery will get the people in my congregation to remember, to connect, then I want to use it. And to be honest, I think it does. Images break into people's imagination, they help their imaginations flourish, it helps them connect the dots.
Hipps: People often say a picture's worth a thousand words. Embedded in that statement is the belief that words and images are interchangeable. But they're not. Philosophical/analytical discourse is not possible through images. Images depict concrete reality, and they're often emotional and visceral. So the question we need to ask is this: What is it I need to convey and which medium is going to convey that inherently?
If I need to do analytical exegetical work, words are absolutely the most effect medium. If I need to evoke an emotional visceral response, images work better. But you have to realize that once you use an image, you risk becoming manipulative.
An image pins the logical side of your brain to the back of your skull, and it doesn't matter how smart or analytical you are, an image will always penetrate behind your logic.
For example, if I put text on a screen that reads "naked woman," it will have one impact. If I showed an image of a naked woman, it would have a dramatically different impact. That's what we need to understand. Words and pictures are not interchangeable media.
We hear a lot about shorter attention spans. How long are your sermons?
Stevens: If I preach more than 35 minutes, I've gone too long.
Hipps: About 15 minutes.
Palmieri: We rarely preach for under 40 minutes. For a long time, I thought attention spans were shortening. I don't think so anymore. People still engage in movies, books, and television shows and never break concentration. Instead I think attention spans are widening. We've learned to pay attention to multiple things at once.
Is that why visuals are so popular—people now expect multiple forms of communication to happen at once?
Hipps: Whether attentions spans are wider or shorter, one thing is clear: the way we think has changed. In the 1980s the average cut in a TV program was about seven seconds. There was seven seconds of uninterrupted footage followed by a camera cut. By the mid-1990s it had dropped to two seconds. Images now change rapidly. Whether you know it or not, that actually re-forms neural pathways in your brain. For my generation in particular, the way we engage things has been fundamentally altered.
How do you get people to do linear abstract thinking, which is what Scripture demands in many ways, when those people's minds are not wired for it? I've responded by dramatically shortening my sermons.
I try to ground people in the text, and I can only do it for about 15 minutes. After that, it's easy to lose people.
Stevens: A story or image is powerful, and it's going to do its own thing. It might take on a life of its own. So it must clearly fit the point I'm trying to communicate. If I use multiple images to illustrate multiple points, it's going to overwhelm people. So I try to have one idea and one image to illustrate it. Anything more is just going to get lost.
If the culture is changing the way people think, should the church be trying to correct that? Should we resist technology and be countercultural?
Stevens: What people do at church is already so countercultural. Worship doesn't happen anywhere else in our world. Where else do we gather with hundreds of people and sing in the middle of the day? Using technology does not mean the church is accommodating or succumbing to the culture. It's respecting where people are at and where they're coming from. People come to church from an image and media driven culture. I have to respect and understand that, but I also need to provide something that they don't get anywhere else. I think that's part of the draw toward mysticism and even monasticism we are seeing. The desire for a transcendent connection with God is very anti-technology. So that may be part of what the church needs to explore.
Palmieri: And we shouldn't forget the power of silence. Typically, in our worship, if there is a sense that the Spirit's leading, we will carve out time for total silence. Silence is very, very rare in our culture. Sixty seconds of silence during worship feels like a long time, but it allows people to connect with God.
Studies show that people learn best when they are actively engaged. With worship in many churches now focused on a screen, how do you avoid creating passive observers?
Stevens: Something we do that's insanely easy is just having people talk to each other. Typically the first five or ten minutes of a sermon I'll introduce an idea and then tell everyone, "Hey, turn to the person next to you and talk about the best Christmas gift you ever got." How simple is that? To actually turn 90 degrees and look at someone next to you in church is shocking to some people, and all the introverts freak out. But to engage and acknowledge that you are not anonymous is important.
I think anonymity is what much of the seeker-boomer movement was built on, and it worked in the past. I think that's not the case anymore. I think many people walk into church feeling alone and can walk out feeling lonelier.
Beyond using visual technology to illustrate sermons, some churches are using video for the sermon. Is it just a novelty or the major trend for the future?
Stevens: We have three campuses, two of which use video. We literally gather in a theater at ten a.m., turn on the computer, and watch a DVD of a worship service—not just the sermon, but the whole service. Everything in me doesn't believe that it will work. I'm not sure I want it to work. But when you go to the service, you realize, it works!
We're experimenting with video with partners all over the world who don't have the resources to do a whole service themselves. I don't know if this is right, but I know it's working right now in a lot of places.
Hipps: You use the phrase "it works." Does that mean video preaching and worship brings people in?
Stevens: It's more than that. They're responding. They're connecting. They're growing.
Palmieri: I worry that we can lean on technology as a crutch instead of getting into the congregation, learning their language, their heart, and being able to communicate on that level. Truth travels most effectively on the platform of relationship.
Stevens: Absolutely. You can't replace relationships.
What do you think the future holds for the way we preach?
Hipps: The last time we were an image-based culture in the West was the Middle Ages. Paper supplies dried up. Literacy rates plummeted. Images became the dominant method of communicating faith. One of the things that happened was that Paul disappeared. Almost no preaching from Paul's letters.
The reason? You cannot depict "the righteousness of Christ" or "grace by faith" visually. These are abstract ideas. But Jesus on the cross, healing a blind man, walking on water—can be put in stained glass windows. They're specific, concrete, visual.
So the future of preaching, I predict, will emphasize Jesus far more than Paul. The narratives of the Old Testament far more than the prophets. Whatever lends itself to visuals and story will be emphasized.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'll leave that up to you.
Leadership will be hosting another conversation on preaching at the National Pastors Convention, February 26-29, 2008. See www.nationalpastorsconvention.com for more information.
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