The Wired Church 2.0

Abingdon Press

Chapter One

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I recently spoke to a group of about thirty-five pastors about "digital ministry." During the question and answer time, I heard the same old argument I often hear made against media: "Let me caution you," a pastor said. "Sometimes it's important to be able to come away from media, and not let it get in the way of the message. Sometimes there just isn't an image that works, so at my church we keep it simple. There are some weeks we don't even use the screen."

Maybe you share the view of this iconoclast. As an advocate for digital media and image in worship, I may go to my grave hearing this same objection from some church professionals. I acknowledged that, yes, some weeks are more difficult than others to image, but when we decide to make it "simple" on ourselves, we are making a decision to make it more difficult on our congregations.

The questioner's argument raised some questions for me, such as: How many church professionals, regardless of denomination, confuse the small "w," the printed words of the Bible, for the big "W," the living Word of Jesus Christ, and in the process sacralize print as a holy form of communication and demonize image as a luxury, or worse, as untrustworthy? How do some preachers who have been trained in the value of homiletics so blindly ignore the value of story and the role of metaphor in rhetoric when communicated through a visual medium? How many of the same preachers still fail to see that in many parts of the Bible, truth is story and story is truth, and metaphor is about as biblical as you can get, whether God is a bush, the Holy Spirit is a dove, or we are clay or sheep or children, and that message and media are inseparable, messily mixed together? The oral practice of preaching was profoundly influenced by print and text, and will again be by screens and image, whether we like it or not. There were many, many people who once violently fought the introduction of print technology into worship, just as now happens with new media.

A SIMPLE DEFINITION OF MEDIA

The problem may be rooted in confusion about what exactly media is. Media is the plural form of the word medium, which is an agent for transmitting messages between senders and receivers. Messages can be anything from the verbal "I love you," to a printed direct mail card, to images on screens, to the civil warning siren that goes off in rural towns twice a month. Electronic, or digital, media are a means to send a message or set of messages to individuals or groups of people in which electronic forms of technology are used. Traditionally the electronic forms have consisted of a group of mass communication tools such as radio, film, television, and the Internet ("mass communication" being a term for the means by which masses of people receive the same sent message).

In popular culture, the term media has come to signify any form of mass communication, and even the industry that creates its messages. Further, digital media refers to this set of communication tools as a singular grouping, particularly in reference to the profound cultural changes they have brought about since the beginning of the twentieth century.

As distinct from detached analysis and criticism, digital, visual media is characteristically narrative in form, which means that it is adept at telling stories. This narrative purpose is in direct contrast to mass print culture, the culture of book reading and research that preceded electronic media. Its strength in storytelling is due to powerful engagement of the senses on multiple levels through visual and aural imagery.

The definition of mass, digital media is evolving as its technological components mature and become more dynamic. Business environments have global, face-to-face boardroom videoconferences; friends communicate real-time by chat, IM, and Twitter, then meet up at the local café using each other's GPS coordinates; groups of fans even persuade television networks to rethink programming decisions through grassroots digital campaigns such as the one that Jason participated in one lazy Sunday when he made a homemade YouTube video and helped save the cult favorite show Jericho. The rise of democratic, participatory media—often called Web 2.0—is signaling a maturation of this new digital communications macrosystem. In many ways it parallels the rise of the printing press from an agent of maintenance to an agent of change over 500 years ago. What it means for the church is that we now have the ability as Martin Luther once did to harness this new media to communicate the gospel in ways that we might not even imagine.

To fully respond to the pastor's statement, it's not a question of whether or not we should "come away from media, and not let it get in the way of the message." The question is, which media—which forms of communication—do we believe are worthy of communicating the gospel? Whether subconscious or not, the questioning pastor revealed that he preferred the more established medium of mass print in worship. The underlying philosophical proposition of this book is that image is just as worthy and capable, and in some ways, a more powerful and effective way to communicate the gospel in this time. (Ironically, there was once a time in church history when the printed word was new and mistrusted, and images were established and "traditional.")

Media is not simply an add-on to the existing means of communicating the gospel in worship, but an emerging, fundamentally new system of communication, equal to the oral and written word. It is imperative that today's Christian leaders understand and use media effectively in worship.

Media, then, should not be treated as operational support, but as a ministry that uses video, audio, graphics, text, the Internet, and other emerging technology applications to communicate the gospel. The more digital, narrative, participatory, and immersive, the better.

MEDIA AS A GOSPEL-SHARING MISSION

At a workshop on media in congregational ministry, a listener questioned me about the specific costs involved in producing high-quality media. He was concerned that it was simply too expensive to do on a weekly basis. I outlined a cost comparison between funding media ministry and funding more established communication forms, such as newsletters and organs. When I mentioned the organ, a man in the back of the room groaned and interrupted with the exclamation that his church had spent $1.3 million for a new organ. He was mortified because he realized that his church had spent so much money ensuring continued success at speaking to a small faction of his church culture through an organ. Now, his church is impoverished when it comes time to speak to much of his congregation, and the culture outside of the church walls, through digital media.

Regardless of its resources, a church is likely to fail without a clear purpose for what a media ministry should accomplish. There are unfortunately many tragic tales of churches that have bought a van full of equipment, only to realize their outsized efforts have produced little effective ministry. An effective mission statement is crucial for the beginning of a viable media ministry. Ideas drive technology, not the other way around.

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