Resources

Vital Worship
Feature Stories ... for inspiration, learning, and group discussion

Projected Images in Worship: Illustrate or Illuminate?

Artist Sandra Bowden compiled a CD of contemporary visuals for worship, Images of Faith. It’s more important to focus on what an image means for worship than on the technology for projecting it.

The Scripture reading is from John 6. So when you hear or read the words “I am the bread of life,” your inner soundtrack begins playing. Maybe it’s Sister Suzanne Toolan’s “I Am the Bread of Life” … the 19th century hymn “Break Thou the Bread of Life” … the Taize chorus “Eat This Bread” …or a repeated Keith Getty line, “so we share in this bread of life.”

“What if you had to go to a church that had had no music since the early 1500s? It’s unimaginable. Yet the void you can’t imagine is there—a 500-year lack of visual arts in Protestant churches,” artist Sandra Bowden says.

You likely have a musical catalogue of memories linked to Psalm 23, Isaiah 40, and other Bible passages. Bowden also has a visual memory bank. “When Scriptures are read, images float across my inner screen, informing and interpreting the Scriptures in rich ways that words alone cannot do,” she explains.

That’s why she combed through 8,000 pieces of contemporary art to choose 100 images for Images of Faith, an interactive CD. These powerful images will help your church add new ways of seeing to worship services. Using Images of Faith can help congregations treat their screens as the domain of the worship arts team, not just the technology team.

Powerful images

“Can You Drink The Cup I Am About to Drink?” by Father John Kiefer. Imagine projecting this image on Good Friday.

“I did this CD so churches can project images with artistic, historical, and biblical depth and integrity during worship. When images are there, the image is catalogued and remembered,” Bowden says. She is an artist and painter from Massachusetts, past president of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA), and a trustee of the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City.

Bowden advises basing your choice of projected images on their ability to illuminate, not illustrate.

“In illustrative work, 90 percent of the meaning is revealed at first glance. In Joan Bohlig’s ‘On the Table, Bread,’ you can almost smell the bread. It reminds me of walking into my mother’s house while she was baking bread and receiving a sense of warmth, home, and substance.”

Bohlig’s painting evokes emotion and goes deeper. The abundant loaves are arranged in a fish shape to remind you of the miracle of loaves and fishes. Her still life composition visually references 17th century Dutch vanitas paintings, a still life genre meant to convey that life’s pleasures are fleeting. Bowden says that Bohling’s etchings may appear simple on first look but include hidden symbols.

You don’t have to be an art historian to see all that, because Images of Faith includes an interpretive essay and artist information for each piece.

“Can You Drink The Cup I Am About to Drink?” is a sterling silver sculpture by Father John Kiefer, a Catholic priest. Silver crowns of thorn, connected by a spiky stem, circle the chalice base and communion cup.

“Can you imagine being handed this chalice on Good Friday? When I show it, people gasp. Some tell me later, ‘I almost wept when I saw that.’ This chalice screams the inevitability of suffering. It’s the invisible made visible,” Bowden says.

New ways of seeing

“Annunciation” by Ted Prescott. The more you look, the more you see in this mixed media installation.

She’s convinced that some Christians view worship visuals as “a frill, an add on,” because they haven’t been introduced to powerful images.

“Old Testament worship involved every sense—sound, sight, touch, smell, and taste. This is the model God gave for worship. Absolutely everyone benefits from carefully chosen visual images. If there are 100 people at worship and only five are deeply moved by the images, that’s worth it, because maybe those five are not deeply moved by music or sermons,” Bowden says.

Any pastor or worship arts committee can learn to choose images to go with a text or song. Ask your team to look at a piece of art and write what they see. What’s the first thing they notice? What are the primary and secondary meanings? Are there hidden symbols? Why did the artist choose those colors? Where is the light coming from and what does that say?

Five or ten minutes is enough time to talk about the image, “unless it precipitates a good conversation. All of what’s uncovered together in committee doesn’t need to go to the congregation,” Bowden says.

Ted Prescott’s “Annunciation” is a mixed media installation. Prescott sculpted Mary as a Mennonite girl standing alone in a humble house, preparing to bake bread. A pastor could spend an entire sermon using this artwork to retell stories of the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary, Jesus’ unexpected entry into history, the Last Supper, communion, and our place in those stories.

Quietly present in worship

“The 5000 Fed” by Laura James. This Ethiopian-style painting reminds worshipers that Christ’s body spans the globe.

Bowden says that one image in a service can be enough. You could project it during the gathering, a prayer, song, Bible reading, or between the minister’s PowerPoint sermon points. Baptisms and communion are also good times to show art.

You don’t have to say much in print or verbally about the art. It’s okay to let it be what Bowden likes to call “quietly present” and give only the work’s name, the artist’s name, and a tidbit. For Prescott’s “Annunciation,” you might explain that the lily is a centuries-old symbol of the Virgin Mary’s purity or that the name Bethlehem means “house of bread.”

Bowden has shown art that strikes people as “primitive.” They wonder why an annunciation woodcut has a dove near Mary’s ear. “Then I explain that medieval artists use the dove at her ear as a symbol of the Word made flesh. People’s mouths drop. These visual details are so profound theologically,” she says.

 

Focus on What, not How, in Planning Worship Visuals

“In the Beginning” by Sandra Bowden. Notice how Hebrew words rise up to form the Living Word.

Dozens of fonts and colors. Fly-in words. Animated graphics. Video loops behind song lyrics. 3D TV-style transitions. Lights synced to the rhythm section. And millions of free or low-cost downloadable images just clicks away.

Slow down.

“Just because the hardware cost a lot and runs magical software doesn’t mean it’s good for worship,” Dean Heetderks cautions in a Reformed Worship column. He is the magazine’s art director and director of product services for the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

If you’re wondering whether projected technology is all it can be in your congregation’s worship, maybe it’s time to rethink your approach. This is especially true if you’ve been treating the screen as solely the domain of the technology team.

Remember why you gather

You can use a photo detail of physical art in the worship space on slides of projected lyrics. Photo courtesy of Tricia Alley.

Worship presentation software sites post testimonials like this direct quote from a worship arts pastor: “Everything worked flawlessly. We had several comments of Broadway, Vegas, Disneyish in excellence and quality.”

That’s fine if you think of engaging in worship as a lot like enjoying a movie, concert, or pro game. If, however, you think that dialogue is a better metaphor for worship than entertainment is, then it’s important that projected technology support the goal of leading people through a conversation with God.

“This is a generalization, but for many technicians, the how is more important than the what. Artists understand that the how is often incidental to the what. This basic difference in approach makes a huge difference in worship.

“It’s the same with a pianist. Just being able to play the equipment isn’t enough. You have to know how to move an entire congregation—of all ages—through worship, giving them visual cues to what is happening or will happen next,” Heetderks says.

Visual cues

Seasonal screens help worshipers match their lives to the rhythm of the liturgical year. Photo courtesy of Nan Frazee-Byington.

Artists serving with the church technology team can help keep the focus on visual cues that orient people in the worship space, the church calendar, and the flow of worship.

“The big ol’ screen is distracting enough. So often I find myself asking our church projectionists, “Is there a way to make this simpler and more straightforward?’” Heetderks says.

Consider photographing part of a hanging banner or other architectural feature of your church. Use this visual snippet as a background or design element on a projected slide. This reminds people that they are not watching entertainment on a stage but are gathered to worship.

Bethany Christian Reformed Church in Muskegon, Michigan, follows the lectionary and liturgical calendar. Nan Frazee-Byington designed seasonal screens to help orient Bethany worshipers in the church year. In each season, she organizes slide space in roughly the same way and includes a watermark (background image) of circles and crosses from season to season.

Slide colors and elements change with the liturgical season, such as green background and violet blossoms during Ordinary Time (after Pentecost) and white and gold backgrounds with holly and evergreens during Christmas Season.

Within each liturgical season, Frazee-Byington created sets of slides that are visually related yet not exactly alike. For example, her Lent screens have varying amounts of burlap. Christians in some traditions carry burlap in their pockets or display it in their homes during Lent. This visual, tactile reminder alludes to Old Testament sackcloth-and-ashes penitence and Christ’s grace in smoothing our rough edges.

Projected images that include text should lead worshipers through each week’s liturgy. Visually unified images and screens help worship flow like a good conversation. Trying to do too many things visually can make worship feel more like a variety show.

Heetderks suggests ignoring most of the cool transition options in worship presentation software. Since most transitions in film are straight cuts, he advises using medium-to-slow fades for most worship projection transitions, such as when the liturgy moves from confession of sin to assurance of pardon.

Less means more

This slide uses a cropped version of a public domain image.

It’s a big pressure for technicians to find and integrate dozens of images into a worship service. So maybe the tech team in your church will feel relieved when the arts people help simplify visuals.

Besides using projected technology to provide visual cues, consider using projected images to add layers of meaning. You don’t need images for every line, verse, song, Bible reading, or sermon point that you project as text.

One well-chosen image per service can be very effective. Worship arts and technology people working together can decide on an upper limit of how much art to include in a given service.

Good sources of meaningful art for projection include:

• Hermano León Clipart
• Images of Faith, an interactive CD with 100 contemporary artworks, each with an interpretive essay and artist contact information
• Public domain images from Flickr (use only those covered by the Creative Commons license) and Wikimedia Commons (especially Christianity in Art and Religion in Art)
• Seeing the Savior, a CD with 35 images from the life of Christ and suggestions for children’s art projects
• Visuals for Worship, a CD and booklet with 29 woodcuts of Christian and biblical symbols

Text by Joan Huyser-Honig

The external links from this site are provided for your convenience and are not necessarily endorsed by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.

This story was originally posted on May 11, 2009. External links were operative at the time the story was posted, but may have expired since then.

CICW web story reprint policy
You have permission to reprint this article (or other stories in our collection) in its entirety, in print or online. Before the title of the article, please reprint the following permission statement. If you are reprinting online, please link to our website.

    This article was first published by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, www.calvin.edu/worship.

Back to top