Well, Springcreek opened their new auditorium today, it being the culmination of about 8 months of effort. Keith Stewart came back from Africa to start a series titled “How’s That Working For You?” that focuses primarily on our image of God and how it gets distorted. The message was good, but I’m not here to talk about the message.
First off, these are just my opinions. I don’t necessarily think they’re the only valid viewpoint, but I’ve done multisensory worship for quite some time, and so I think I have a decent idea of what a service should entail. For me, every single element of the service should tie together. The music should fit the scriptures and themes used in the message. Any graphics should be cogent and meaningful. Otherwise, you’re putting on a fancy show that can get in the way of God. You wind up worshipping the idol of rotating lights and a good sound system more than you worship God. That’s my biggest struggle with the new building.
I personally feel like there’s a lot of time and talent invested in building backgrounds and setting color changes for songs. However, the lyrics themselves aren’t laid out consistently. They’ve added a fancy rotating light with five different gobo settings in the middle. While this is interesting, when it changes from image A to image B in the middle of a song, you have a period where the entire light is rotating, and it’s a severe detraction. Come to think of it, using that light in every case seemed to distract people from the lyrics, and it really didn’t match any of the elements on the backgrounds of the lyrics. It felt like it was trying to be shoehorned in, and that kinda drives me crazy. And if the pattern has nothing to do with the song, then what good is it? An attractor for short-attention-span minds? As much as Scott and the team may want to make it, it’s not a night club. It still is a church, and there’s my mantra again — if it doesn’t support the message, what is it doing?
Again, this is just my opinion that I’ve developed in studying what makes a service meaningful. Why not sing “Lord You are good and Your mercy endures forever” when Keith calls that out during his message? Part of it is a planning and logistics issue. You have to know the verses and high points to get the music out to people, and if the minister’s not ready, then it won’t happen. But if you can plan for it, why not at least try?
I think this is one of those reasons why I’m not in the booth. I don’t buy into the current vision of what they’re doing. I’m okay with that. I just don’t want to be driven away from the music portion of the service because of it.
EDITED to add the following note: My wife, who is much, much smarter than I am on certain things, noted that while some people may be very, very hesitant to sing in church, regardless of whether they know the songs or not, they’ve probably been to a concert. Okay, I’ll give them that, but still….