Looking for a quick fix that’ll bring more Millennials into your church? Technology might seem like the best answer. It seems like everyone, not just young adults, is glued to their smartphones nowadays.
The problem is, technology in church can become a trap. If you google it, you’ll find blogs like this one, which lists a number of ways your congregation can become more tech-savvy.
This article lists many potentially good ideas for certain churches. But it suggests that these strategies can or should be applied indiscriminately. Most churches use technology like that, implementing the most popular technological trends as a way to conform to postmodern culture.
And when they do, that technology can become a liability, not a boon.
As a pastor, you’re working hard to meet the spiritual needs of the community you serve—to facilitate connection with God during worship, or to connect people to one another in fellowship, for example.
Used properly, technology in church should be just one tool in your toolkit to achieve those ends. It’s certainly not a tool you should ignore. But ultimately, it’s a means, not an end.
So here are three basic rules for seamlessly integrating technology into your worship service—while avoiding the pitfalls that can hinder connection with God and others.
Rule 1: Let technology in church serve you, not the other way around.
Whatever technology you use, it needs to be concretely meeting the spiritual needs of you and your congregation. In worship, this will probably mean facilitating focus on the service. For instance, if people in your congregation are distracted by bulletins, you may want to use screens instead.
Or perhaps, you may want to use technology in church to directly facilitate a connection with the Holy Spirit. Dimmed lights or electronic music are common examples.
But it’s important to think carefully before installing anything, because there’s a key difference between conforming to the culture and creatively responding to the culture’s spiritual needs. Obviously, we’re aiming for the latter.
Conforming to tech culture means creating glitchy or distracting technological experiences for the sake of technology itself. Ultimately, this approach draws attention away from the sermon, Eucharist, or overall connection with the Holy Spirit.
To use technology in church to meet the spiritual needs of your community, you need to get a sense of your goals. Not just goals for worship in general but for your worship, specifically.
What’s the reason you’re here every Sunday? Why do people come to your church instead of the one across town? A small, contemplative church will have very different answers to those questions than a megachurch, and for good reason.
Once you have your answers in mind, you can ask how technology will further that specific identity and your unique worship goals.
For instance, perhaps you are expanding pastoral care to the sick and homebound. Live-streaming your services could help you do that. Or, maybe you want people to be focusing on the altar rather than leafing through bulletins during Eucharist. Screens could help keep people’s attention at the front instead of down at the floor.
This article from Tithely and this article from Christianity Today lists a number of reasons why technology could be helpful for you.
There’s an important caveat: they assume that every church should be pursuing all of their technological ideas. As I said above, I don’t think that’s a thoughtful approach. But you can use the articles to get some ideas about what your specific goals are and then think about how technology can serve you.
Once you have thought through the purpose of technology in your church, you’re ready to think about the specific form it will take in the service.
Rule 2: Simplify
Simplification is a key difference between technology in the secular world and technology in church.
Technology in the secular world is created to make us more efficient. To help us do more things, faster. It usually ends up cluttering our brains and our calendars to the max. Which often draws us away from God.
As a result, we live in a society that is often distracted and distractable, two qualities which hinder a relationship with the Holy Spirit in our midst.
If you put up technology in church as a way of conforming to society, you might continuing that trend. You could put up screens with announcements that advertise church events before and after worship. Or maybe you could create images to go along with each part of your sermon so that no one gets bored.
Most of the time, these uses of technology in church will just continue damaging cultural trends.
Instead, make your technology simple. Minimize visual and audial busy-ness.
If you’re using slides during your sermon to emphasize a point, only use a few words or images at once. Make sure they don’t distract attention from your sermon, but rather draw attention back to your words. Create lots of white space on the slide. Rotate through slides very slowly.
If you’re projecting music, try not to cram a whole hymn onto the screen. Instead, you could consider putting up only the words to a familiar tune. Before and after the service, don’t put up announcements—instead, leave the screen blank or put up a calming image to help people settle in to worship.
And size is important too. Too big, and it will distract people from what you’re doing up front. Too small, and people will be squinting. Make it the Goldlilocks size for your sanctuary space.
And, most importantly, remember that technology in church is serving the purpose of worship, not the other way around.
Rule 3: Be good at it.
You know that sound of nails on a chalkboard? That’s how it feels to this Millennial, at least, when technology in church goes awry.
Recently, I sat through a service that involved a slideshow, with pictures accompanied by music. The idea of the slideshow was wonderful—it served the purposes of worship that day. And the effort was there, put in by the pastor and other dedicated lay volunteers.
But ultimately, the technology was glitchy and the presenters didn’t know how to create a high-quality presentation. In the end, the execution undercut the wonderful idea and effort that had been put in.
The slideshow kept reverting to the home screen of the PC. People kept having to jump up and adjust the audio, which fluctuated between too loud and too quiet. The music did not taper off at the end of the slideshow, but cut off abruptly in the middle, ruining the atmosphere.
I had to deep-breathe my way through the service.
The advancements in technology mean that newcomers to your church will expect smooth, professional quality. When the equipment is glitchy and old or the presenter is technologically inexperienced, the intention backfires.
Rather than focusing on worship, people are cringing
As you’re creating a tech presentation, use two basic rules of thumb, one for standard weekly performances and one for important services.
For weekly services, as you prepare any kind of technological presentation, ask yourself: if you were in an office and using this technology in an important presentation to your boss, would you be happy with the quality?
Before important services or if you’re rolling out a whole new kind of technology in your service, it’s time to kick it up a notch. Find someone in their twenties, preferably a professional, and have them sit through the presentation. If they’re cringing, it needs work.
Maybe you can’t afford technology that runs well. Or maybe you don’t have anyone in your church who can use it at a semi-professional (or at least Millennial) standard. That’s okay.
If that’s the case, you’re better off not using technology at all. If it’s impossible to create a technological experience that passes the rules of thumb above, then the consequences outweigh the benefits. It’s better to have a technology-free, smooth worship service than one full of technological glitches.
Once you create a presentation that lives up to the standards above, it’s imperative that you practice multiple times. This is especially important if you’re unfamiliar with any aspect of the tech usage that day. This way, you can work out the glitches and decide if it lives up to your quality standards.
In the end, technology in church can be like any other worship aide—it can help or hinder connection with God and the Body of Christ, depending on its design. Technology may have taken over everywhere else, but it shouldn’t get a free pass in your sanctuary. Rather, it needs to meet your needs, and those of the people you serve.
Have you recently used technology in your church? Comment below and tell me how it worked out—and if you’re doing anything differently next time!