ACJ Media Ministries

I had the opportunity to run the sound and lights at church today. It went very well. We had a stripped down worship service. Our worship leader played on piano and sang along with his wife. I can say without a doubt that I worshipped; I met with God.

When I was in the sound booth, I paid particular attention to the lighting of the sanctuary. “Why would you pay attention to something so insignificant?” you ask.

John Weygandt, visual director at Willow Creek Community Church, writes about the three objectives that he keeps in mind when he plans a lighting system. He says, “First and foremost, light enables us to see. If a lighting system achieves nothing else, it must be visibility.” Secondly, he says, “Composition is the use of light and dark to focus attention.” The final objective that he mentions is variety. He explains that we don’t use variety for its own sake but rather it should be supportive and subservient to what is being communicated through the worship and the Word. That is, light and all other technical aspects are an indirect form of communication whereas preaching, worship, etc. are a direct form of communication.

Lighting and other technical aspects of a worship service are not so insignificant when we understand their role as supportive and subservient. If we do not understand their role as such, we can make these technical aspects more important. From this distorted view of things stem complaints about the technicalities in a worship service and in this process of complaining, we lose sight of what we really came to church for in the first place.

Has that ever been you?

Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror write in their book Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel, “When the heart is set upon God, true worship will not depend upon outward stimulus, it will be in constant progress.” They continue, “Heart worship does not defy art worship, for heart worship will give rise to new levels of art which will have tremendous significance. […] Beautiful aesthetic surroundings will not generate God-centered worship, but the worshipping heart can take wings in a beautiful setting.”

What is the driving desire behind our worship life? Is our worship dependent on the factors around us or is it dependent on what God has done in our inmost being?

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15).

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