Visual Worship
“God gave us eyes so that we can worship Him. If we were not able to glorify God with what we see, He would not have created us with eyes to begin with.”
—Anthony Lee, Worship VJ, Hong Kong
What we see in the world around us deepens our knowledge and understanding of a Holy God and causes us to respond to Him in a fresh new way. Visual Worship involves awareness of the world you live in and seeing Christ at work in visual ways. Not only can we see the evidence of God and His revelations, but we have an incredible opportunity to respond and reflect His glory through visual expressions.
We live in an age where the arts and worship are starting to re-converge. There are many ways in which this is happening, but it seems as though most art is creeping its way into our gatherings through the medium of technology, specifically through the tool of digital projection. What started with PowerPoint has evolved into intricate presentations layered with motion backgrounds. Today, with the Internet and the click of a mouse, we can project virtually any image we can imagine onto a screen. Technological paintbrushes are at our fingertips, and it seems the visual canvas is endless.
Visual Worship is only one small piece of the puzzle, for sight is just one of many senses that God has created us with. However, it seems to be a gift that has been severely misunderstood in the Western Church. The question for you and your ministry is: Are you willing to shift your approach, if needed, in order to more clearly reflect the creativity of God? And if so, what does that look like in your setting?
How do you use technology to enhance the worship experience?
This is an excerpt from “A Guidebook for Visual Worship” by Stephen Proctor, recently released on worshipvj.com/store. It is a vision-casting and training resource for visual worship leaders and teams. The above image is an example of immersive environmental projection created by Proctor and Mark Pierson in the basement of the Baptist Tabernacle in Auckland, New Zealand. For more information about Proctor and Pierson, visit worshipvj.com and claryfirecurator.com.
