I'm in a bit of dilemma, well, perhaps dilemma is too strong a term, however I do face a conflict.
Last night I attended a presentation on church lighting, smoke machines and lasers. We are in the midst of a slow going youth room redesign project. And, don't get me wrong... I know that if you can't see the speaker’s lips it's hard to discern what he or she is saying. I get that. We do need lighting. The dilemma part, though, is that I'm in youth ministry, and in youth ministry things are a bit different than the Sunday morning adult worship services experienced all across America. We live in a generation where super computers are held in the palms or our hand and the media blitz is at an all time, staggering, height. We know more about Tiger Woods and whom he, um..., keeps company with than we know about anyone else, or care to know about, in our lives. Our teens are geared toward fast moving, thumb nail bytes of information at the click of a button. This trend is making it more difficult for newspapers to deliver the news because there's a generation of readers who know what it is to receive short 160 character text messages of info, and the papers' dilemma is how to get this generation to read a full news print article.
So, I'm in this presentation last night and the salesman was doing his thing to pitch to about 5 different churches what his company has to offer in the latest of lighting technology for church platforms and stages. At one point, he begins to talk about a preacher delivering his sermon and how he can use lighting to create a dramatic effect by "painting" the platform red or blue to achieve the desired mood that the speaker is stressing in his sermon. I turned to a youth pastor friend of mine sitting beside me and said, "We don't really need the Holy Spirit any longer do we?"
The thing, too, that I don't want to do is to necessarily demonize technology. After all, pen and parchment in the Apostle Paul’s day was their ancient version of the laptop. Painted iconography was used to tell, or show, stories and to teach biblical truth – again, technology. Technology isn't the problem, however I have this deep, guttural feeling that it's easy for the ministry to add an effect, such as lighting, smoke, lasers, than to seek and pray and agonize for the true Light who illuminates mankind's hearts. It's much easier to write a check, add some lighting, sound equipment, motion effects, lasers, etc. than it is to make bloody our knees in seeking God with anguished spirit. Plus, it makes us more competitive with our competition down the street, right? And I’m not talking about some bar or night club… no, the competition nowadays is other churches! If we through in some Starbucks coffee, doughnuts and a pastor with cool glasses and a penchant for taking spiritual truths, hipping them up, and forming life groups to discuss the talking points at some hip city location then you have a modern church recipe for modern day church success. All too often what we end up with is an ultra hip social setting that produces ultra hip church attendees and rarely, if ever, do these attendees go on to holiness in Christ. As our pastor put it so aptly, and strikingly, this past Sunday morning, we erect altars to God next to or between the altars of Baal and the Asherah poles (see Judges 6).
I know, I know, the devil is using all the technology and lighting to keep teens distracted in the social settings we call the world. And, if we don't compete with him using the same tools, then we will lose that generation. I don't know if we've looked around lately, but we've already lost them..., and we've used the greatest materials technology has to offer. Maybe dilemma isn't too strong of a term after all.
Technology isn't the devil and can be used to enhance a setting. However, what is the devil is letting anything be a replacement for the true fire on the altar of God. Any illegitimate fire on the altar results in certain death... maybe that's why we've lost a generation to counterfeit fire. We’re too cool for school…
