1. The potential for idolatry. No, I’m not saying that every church or pastor that uses a big screen or Power Point slides during their service is necessarily guilty of idolatry.  But when the people of a church finds themselves thinking things like “we can’t reach this generation without this kind of technology”, or when a pastor finds himself freaking out when the Power Point presentation crashes two minutes before the service starts, they might be.  I have heard people actually say that the glitches in their church’s Power Point presentation were caused by the devil.  Really?  I think Satan is more interested in making us think that the Power Point presentation is necessary in some way, and that people will either not believe in Christ without it or that the church will die without it.

God does not need a big screen or a Power Point presentation.  His Holy Spirit is the one who creates faith in our hearts through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments.  There will not be one more person in heaven because a pastor decided to supplement his sermon with Power Point slides or because a church decided to put the lyrics of all their songs on a big screen.  Conversely, there will not be one more person in hell because a pastor or church decided NOT to do these things.  When we think that our human activity apart from the Word of God makes the difference between heaven and hell, we are no longer trusting in God alone to save sinners.  We are guilty of idolatry and need to repent.

2. Making the screen the focal point of the service. Instead of the focal point of the service being the pulpit and the altar and the baptismal font – the places where the Word is proclaimed and the gifts of God are distributed – the focal point is the big screen at the front of the sanctuary.  Instead of drawing people’s attention to the place where God comes down to us, the screen draws people’s attention to the things WE are doing.  If there is a way to NOT make the screen the focal point, I would be very interested to hear how that could be done.

3. Detaching lyrics from the actual musical notes to which those lyrics are sung. I have learned the tune of many a Lutheran hymn simply because the words AND musical notes were available to me in the hymnal.  Musical notes are generally not projected on a screen, for copyright reasons – and thus the only songs that are projected onto the screen are usually 1) very simple praise songs with little depth and/or 2) songs with tunes that everyone knows already.  Since big screens are purported to be an “outreach” tool, how does it help outsiders to the church if everyone expects them to already know the tunes of all the songs that are being sung?  Had it not been for the hymnal and its inclusion of the musical notes I would have been hopelessly lost when I first started attending a Lutheran church – where the majority of the hymns were hymns I did not know.

“But what about the fact that most people don’t know how to read music to begin with?”  That’s more of a commentary on the current state of education in this country.  Drawing the conclusion that “thus we should completely abandon written music in church” does not follow.  The fact that many (maybe even most?) people nowadays are NOT able to read music is no excuse for making it more difficult for the rest of us who are.  I have found that my ability to read the music of a tune unfamiliar to the people around me makes it easier for them to catch on to the melody.  Take the hymnal away and I might be just as lost as anyone else.  Without the written music it makes it much harder for people to learn new or unfamiliar songs that have any theological depth.

So those are a few of the reasons why I am not a big fan of screens in church.  You may disagree with me, and that’s fine.  Or you may feel the same way as I do but for other reasons.  Feel free to post your comments.  And read this article by Pastor Fisk.  Great stuff.

What’s in the Bible? is, in a nutshell, an attempt to address declining biblical literacy in the North American church. VeggieTales was an amazingly effective way to teach individual Bible stories, but not abstract concepts like sin, redemption, or God’s grace. Yet these concepts are the core of a meaningful faith. Christian colleges report that incoming freshmen—even those from Christian homes—know less about the Bible each year. And partly as a result of a lack of meaningful knowledge about their faith, 65 percent of Christian kids are walking away from the church as soon as they leave high school.

So, What’s in the Bible? is a new 13-part series that will walk kids all the way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Call it “Christianity 101”—a crash course in our faith, presented with the same wit and whimsy as VeggieTales.

A number of introductory videos can be found here:  http://whatsinthebible.com/

I was curious as to what you all think of this sort of thing.

My first inclination is to think that, despite their good intentions in trying to address widespread Biblical illiteracy, this sort of thing actually contributes to that by trivializing the Bible and putting it on par with the latest whimsical animated Disney movie. It seems to me to be the product of a philosophy that says kids can’t learn unless they are being entertained/amused. The problem is – how does this prepare kids for serious instruction when they are older? How does one transition to something as ordinary as the Small Catechism, or serious topics like apologetics, after a steady diet of stuff like this? I’m having a hard time imagining kids taking the subjects of sin, redemption, suffering, death, and hell too seriously with this kind of presentation.

Maybe my fears are unfounded? Any thoughts?

You know what I'm talking about.  Those forwarded e-mails that you get in your inbox every now and again.  They range in their content from heartwarming stories or messages of inspiration, to mere collections of animal pictures, to serious warnings about how the government is going to take away all our rights. 

The vast majority of the time, when I receive a forwarded e-mail that
tells some sort of story or makes some kind of assertion, a quick trip
to www.truthorfiction.com will reveal that the story is either not true
or hopelessly outdated.  It amazes me how people will not check to see
if what they are passing on is accurate.  I can't even count the times
I have received the same e-mail about how Congress is going to pass a
bill that will take all religious programming off the air, even though
one version or another of that same e-mail has been circulating for at
least ten years and it is a known hoax.

The one thing that is common to almost all of these e-mails is that they usually use guilt or superstition to induce the person who received the e-mail to keep forwarding them.  The ones that use superstition to perpetuate themselves usually go something like this:  "Make a wish, send this to ten people within the next five minutes and your wish will come true.  If you don't do this, then you will have bad luck for five years!!"  Or the religious version: "Send this to ten people within the next five minutes and you will receive a blessing!" 

The ones that use guilt to perpetuate themselves usually go something like this:  "If you care about America, forward this to ten people.  If you couldn't care less about what happens to our country, then delete."  Or, "If you love Jesus and aren't ashamed of Him, forward this to ten people", of course implying that if you don't forward the e-mail then you don't love Jesus or are ashamed of Him.  There was one e-mail that basically equated not forwarding the e-mail to denying Jesus a la Matthew 10:33.

I am a Christian, and I do love Jesus.  But does my forwarding of an e-mail (a piece of junk e-mail at that) really show whether or not this is true?  Have I really denied Jesus if I refuse to forward junk e-mail that happens to contain a picture of Him, along with some bad poetry?  Why should I clutter up my neighbor's inbox with more guilt-inducing, superstitious, insipid junk mail?  There are better ways for me to demonstrate my faith, thank you very much.  It doesn't take much faith or courage to forward a piece of junk e-mail.

Maybe I will offend some people with this.  I am sure many people who send these things do not think of it this way and don't mean any harm.  But think about it – if I really have something uplifting to share with someone, why shouldn't I do this in my own words or in person, or at the very least without a message of guilt or superstition (be it secular or religious) at the end?  If I really have some important information to share with someone, why shouldn't I send them a link to a reputable website that contains verifiable, factual information about the matter rather than forwarding an e-mail containing information that, for all I know, someone could have just made up?

Just something to think about…