Thanks to Andy Goodliff for linking to this article on the use of Powerpoint in worship, which chimes in with many of my thoughts on the matter. Personally, I’m caught between the arguments for the projection of song worship lyrics (potential for greater flexibility, more sustainable as no printing) and the arguments against (many of which are listed below but also include things like accessibility – this has recently struck me for example at both of the churches I regularly worship at where, as far as I know, there is no regular provision should a visually impaired visitor come, something I need to remember to raise and suggest!). I would be interested in hearing arguments from both sides.
PowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they’ve come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.
Indeed, PowerPoint makes worshipers less aware of the persons around them; they engage in less eye contact and other forms of human interaction for fear of missing something on the screen. (One might argue that hymnals, prayer books and bulletins potentially create the same sort of isolation or individualism in worship, and it’s possible that they do. But the sheer dominating presence of a projection screen in worship works in concert with PowerPoint’s client-driven bias to cater rather blatantly to the consumer/customer/individual.)
To use PowerPoint in worship is to unwittingly set up a competition between what’s projected on the screen and the human voice doing the preaching, praying or singing. And it’s a contest that PowerPoint always wins because, as Richard Lischer has observed, when the brain is asked to listen and watch at the same time, it always quits listening. What PowerPoint enthusiasts see as enhancing the worship experience – projecting pictures of water during a baptism or images of fire and wind on Pentecost – is instead a form of sensory overload that manipulates emotions and stifles imagination. It is difficult to cultivate an awareness and appreciation of ambiguity and mystery in worship when images are projected at strategically timed moments in the liturgy for the purpose of instructing worshipers what to think and feel.
I’m back from Greenbelt, the tents are hanging in the garden drying out ready for returning to their homes and I’ve washed, brushed my teeth and discovered the unbelievable beauty of feeling fresh and clean. How undervalued a feeling it is! So here’s my initial thoughts on this year’s Greenbelt (which definitely beats last year’s for me, which was already very good).
The Good
There were loads of things that were great, but a few stand out:
John Bell ‘Jesus, my Facebook Friend’ (Jerusalem, Monday afternoon) – I love John Bell as a speaker, but only got to hear him speak once over the weekend (though by all accounts, he did an excellent treatment of child abuse in the church on Saturday afternoon). He was speaking here about the rise of technology in general and social media in particular (specifically Facebook), and evaluating it theologically, especially coming from the perspective of presence and relationship – if Jesus did indeed come to model humanity in its truest possible sense, then we need to rediscover how to let all of ourselves be open to relationship and be wary of letting the gifts of God be replaced by technological substitutes.
Mark Yaconelli – fantastic speaker, funny and poignant at the same time. We saw him a lot over the weekend (I have a sneaking suspicion this may be due to one of our number having a crush on him!) but it was well worth it every time. I especially enjoyed his sessions on how to practically love your enemies, drawing on the contemplative tradition.
Transcendence (Centaur, Sunday Night) – beautiful, other worldly, captivating and engaging. There are no words to express how moving the Transcendence Eucharist was. Plus, it’s a discovery for me as a good Baptist: I love the smell and use of incense. Now . . . how to get more Eucharist into worship . . . One other hightlight of this was the Accord choir, who were fantastic. Most notably, they produced a stunning a capella version of Matt Redman’s “God in my living”, which was the only time I have heard it and not winced with pain at the musical slaughter that it always entails (and I am including original recordings in this wincing!). Well done to them!
Richard Rohr – it goes without saying that Richard Rohr is great, but of particular note was the talk on the Cosmic Christ and necessity to recognise the first-born nature of Christ and hold this in tension with the doctrine of incarnation. He was urging us to move away from dualistic thinking and categories (drawing on the festival’s theme of “Looking sideways”) and quoted with approval St Augustine “The church exists in the Communion of all Creation”
Andy Flannagan – who, apart from making beautiful use of his band and actress to really touch us, made the much needed and in my view essential move of leading worship in the middle of a large congregation with the band all facing inwards rather than on a stage! This meant he led our side of the room with the back of his head . . . and I didn’t mind a bit! It’s such a breath of fresh air from an almost idolatrous focus on the worship band/leader/minister/pastor up at the front of the church which we all gaze at – it gave worship back to the corporate body! Amen!
Other highlights included Dave Walker’s cartoons (always funny and always perceptive!), the Iona/Christian Aid singing (and no, Adrian Plass, not an angry Scottish lady to be found!), the foraging workshop (though I feel it would be better entitled “101 ways to kill yourself with half edible plants”!), the Beat Eucharist (perfect!), the Apple Cart Theatre Company (always a perfect example of story telling and very funny with it) and the Divine Chocolate stand.
Baked apples and cheese-and-soup nights back at the tent with E and E – beautiful moments of food heaven. If only more of life can revolve around such simple pleasures!
Finally, mention needs to be made of the beautiful Communion at Mainstage on Sunday morning. Perfect mix of traditions and influences, powerfully engaging of the senses through colour, confetti machines and music and sensitively led. Well done to all involved.
The bad
The weather in the week leading up to Greenbelt meant that we had to carry all the stuff about 1.5 miles from the car to where we had fixed our tents. Not so fun when you have very heavy cool boxes full of frozen milk – my back definitely felt that. The weather over the weekend was great though. It must be said, however, the nights were not so fun: the presence of frost on the ground confirmed the horrific cold I felt every morning, even with my thick sleeping bag! On Monday morning, I got up at half six, put the kettle on for others then trekked across to the YMCA tent to use the loo in the warm (bliss!) and have a hot chocolate (even more so!). Definitely worth it! However, cold nights were a great excuse for midnight soup and cheese sessions with E and E. But yes, a little warmer would definitely have been nice.
I was also disappointed that Kate Picket (co-author of The Spirit Level) had to cancel, as I referenced this book with approval during a SD essay last year, and it would have been really interesting to have interacted with her. However, things don’t always work out as planned.
The Ugly
Portaloos. OK, it’s Greenbelt and in all fairness they do a stunning job of keeping them half-way useable throughout the weekend (as in all things, the festival organisation and volunteers are faultless). But still, it’s not like I’m ever going to wake up one morning thinking “You know, I’d just love to go and use a portaloo today”.
Finally: CHELTENHAM! I have never yet managed to get from A to B in Cheltenham without getting lost and having to turn round at least once. I hate driving round Cheltenham and I hate that it foxes me so. The only place I get like this with is Abingdon just near where I live. I think they were designed by the same sadistic town planner who is just bitter about life.
This is a photo of me at Leuchars station yesterday afternoon prior to my journey south to Oxford so I can go to Greenbelt. Everything ran very smoothly and I enjoyed looking out of the window at the amazing Scottish scenery. I especially loved the stretch of coastline between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh and crossing the Firth of Forth.
David and J were less impressed though – apparently, I was a wee bit on the large side for them to be able to comfortably study on a double seat in the train, so I kept being prodded and poked around as they tried to make a bit more space for some books.
Things improved though as they put their stuff away and I learnt to play the Spanish card game of Brisca. It was pretty good, though my paws were a bit big to successfully hold the cards, so I ended up just watch them. Plus, David was just too good at winning, so there was no point.
Right now, I am sending David out to go shopping for food for Greenbelt before he and J start cooking it all up. Yum yum. I am going to stay inside in the warm so my fur doesn’t get wet before Greenbelt.
Bishop Alan has posted an interesting guide on learning Hungarian. The Church of England bishops are always full of surprises – who knew that one of the bench could speak Hungarian!
As a Russian and German student, I am slightly shocked by the number of cases: 14 on top of the fairly standard Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive. Ouch! I’m never again going to moan at the seven cases in Russian (well, not today anyway . . . !).
Richard Hall also pointed out that it was the perfect excuse to gratuitously play this:
Yesterday in my post of what I’m looking forward to at Greenbelt, I hinted that there was someone else that was coming along who I would reveal today. Well, allow me to make introductions for you.
This is Bruegga. He lives with us and he belongs to me and my flatmate.
And he’s coming to Greenbelt.
You see, Bruegga had been moaning that he was often left out of the action because he was so often left out of all the fun and frollicks that we get up to, simply because he was a bear and fluffy. “This is unfair”, he grumbled.
So we relented, and said he was allowed to come to Greenbelt. Well, Bruegga is very excited about this and has decided he would not only like to come but to write a photo journal of his time at Greenbelt and maybe see if he can get some cheeky teddy photos with some of the people involved in running it.
This journal will be available after the festival (Bruegga, unfortunately, is not rich enough to be able to afford the kind of data plan that would allow on the fly updating of photos during the course of the festival), along with some of his comments, thoughts and bear-centred musings about everything. He will also be tweeting his way around the site as he sees things that catch his eye.
If you’re going to Greenbelt and you see us around, why not stop and have your photo taken with Bruegga – he would love to have more friends in his memories of the weekend and you might become famous for having your photo taken in the up-and-coming field of Teddy Travel Writing.
So subscribe to the RSS feed and twitter feed (being a bear who is still a minor, he’s not allowed his own twitter feed, so he is on mine @davidbunce to stop any malicious teddies from following him!) and catch up with Bruegga’s fun and frollicks around Greenbelt 2010!
Now my only worry is that he will put my thoughts and reflections in the shade!
This list comes from Katherine Venn (Greenbelt ’10 contributor) and I found it interesting:
Do it yourself/be a punk. Don’t ask an expert to do something for you. Why? Because you learn how to do things by doing them; it’s easier to do interesting things when you don’t actually know how to do them; you discover all sorts of new things along the way; and it increases the chance of serendipity.
Say no to the unimportant things so you can say yes to the important things. (I suppose this is related to the previous post, about trying to do interesting/special things at all.)
Always be trying to do things that are too hard for you, that are just beyond your reach. There are limits to what you can do, obviously, but you should always be pushing yourself. I have to say I always start off thinking that writing anything is beyond my reach.
Make your head your office. You should always have a few problems/ideas that you can pick up and work on wherever you are, consciously or otherwise. I like this mental habit in particular, though I haven’t yet managed to cultivate it with any kind of success. Too much of the time I equate writing with sitting silently at my desk, but I know I need to learn to be puzzling things over more of the time, and I’ve definitely solved things or had good ideas while doing the washing up or whatever. I think those are the two key points of this habit: it assuages work guilt (you don’t have to be at your desk to be at work), and it allows you to mull things over more easily both consciously and unconsciously.
Be strict about doing a little of whatever it is you’re doing every day – even if just for fifteen minutes. Which is the same advice as not breaking the chain.
Have strategies in place for dealing with failure. If you’re going to be trying to do something special, as per the previous post, and if you’re continually pushing at the limits of what you can do, you’re going to fail a lot. So you need to learn to see that 95% of what’s wrong with getting something wrong is actually your own response to it.
Remember that what you’re working at is an act of discovery as well as an act of creation. Knowing that it’s not all internally created takes a lot of the pressure off: the difference between quarrying a piece of rock out, and thinking that with a bit of dust you have to actually make the rock yourself.
I'm a student from Didcot studying German and Russian at St Andrews University. These pages chronicle my
thoughts about life,
faith and just about everything else.
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