[Sigtis-l] NYTimes.com Article: Religion Finds Technology

Mon May 20 12:49:25 EDT 2002

This article from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by bartlejd at pg.cc.md.us.

Good Day,

As the Chair of TIS I am sending this to the listserve as an item of interest. Discussion is welcome on any item that is posted here. 

In addition to this item if there are any other tiems pertaining to technology, information and society that you think would be of interest here, please post.

Sincerely,

John D. Bartles
Systems Librarian
Prince George's Community College
301 Largo Road
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bartlejd at pg.cc.md.us

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Religion Finds Technology

May 16, 2002
By J. D. BIERSDORFER 

LIVE full-color images from cameras placed around the room
started to appear on the wall-mounted projection screens,
and the crowd began to quiet down in anticipation. The room
was full of sleek video and audio gear and illuminated by
theatrical lighting equipment, but the event was not a
stage production, a sports event or a television-show
taping. 

It was church on a Sunday morning. 

Specifically, it was the Calvary Cathedral of Praise, a
Pentecostal church in the Kensington section of Brooklyn
that uses the latest in video presentation and professional
sound equipment to enhance and enliven worship for its
members. Hymn lyrics are superimposed over live shots of
the choir, and the pastor is in view on the screens no
matter where one sits. The sound reproduction rivals that
of a concert hall. 

Calvary Cathedral is not alone: houses of worship all over
the country are going high-tech in a variety of ways. From
digital sound systems to PowerPoint sermon outlines to
multiple remote cameras that send out streaming Webcasts,
technology has found religion - or maybe it's the other way
around. 

"Churches, just like everybody else, are looking at the
power of their communications," said Randal Lemke,
executive director of the International Communications
Industries Association, an audiovisual industry group based
in Fairfax, Va. "They've got young people coming up who are
very visual. They're trying to use the same technology that
people are using in businesses and in entertainment." 

The association sponsors InfoComm, an annual trade show
that showcases products and developments in the audio and
visual industries. Dr. Lemke said that although religious
groups have long attended the show to learn of new audio
products, their interest in video projection and
presentation systems has risen significantly over the last
five years. 

"There's clearly a trend toward better production," said
Sam Berkow, a consultant for the Walters-Storyk Design
Group who oversaw the integration of sophisticated sound
and video systems into Central Synagogue, home to a Reform
Jewish congregation on the East Side of Manhattan. "Once
people can buy a reasonable sound reproduction system for
home, like a CD player and a pair of speakers for $500,
their expectations for sound quality increase
exponentially." 

Many churches are investigating how they can provide
Webcasts and reach out in other ways over the Internet,
said Shelagh Rogers, publisher of Technologies for Worship
Magazine and an organizer of Inspiration, an annual
conference focusing on new technology for religious
institutions. 

"The bigger churches have all the bells and whistles
already, like the video projections, the screens, and the
really good sound systems," Ms. Rogers said. "Now the
growth that we're finding is in the churches that have 500
seats and under." John Rasz, pastor of the 360-seat
Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Wheeling, W.Va., for the
last 18 years, uses a system of Sony presentation
projectors at his service each week to display
announcements and hymn lyrics, and shows an occasional clip
from a Hollywood film like "Braveheart" to reinforce points
in his sermon. "I love movies," he said. "If a picture is
worth a thousand words, then a video has to be worth a
million." 

The Rock, an interdenominational Christian church in
Roseville, Calif., led by Francis Anfuso as senior pastor,
takes congregational interactivity to a new level. The
church has a 330-seat sanctuary with a big-screen
television and integrated keypads built into seat armrests.
The buttons on the keypads allow members of the
congregation to answer multiple-choice questions asked by
the pastor during the service. 

The answers, which often touch on delicate issues like
emotional abuse or spending habits, are quickly compiled
into percentages. (A recent question was "How many of you
have ever attempted suicide?") The pastor takes the
responses and adjusts his sermon on the spot, recounting
stories about life experiences that address the
congregation's concerns. 

"The pastor's primary vision for preaching the service was
to take a monologue and turn it into a dialogue," said
Brett Drury, an administrator at the church. 

The Rock of Roseville had its own software designed for its
custom-built keypads, but commercial programs for such
church systems exist, too. Fowler Productions, a company
based in Norman, Okla., that has helped scores of churches
integrate audio-video systems into their services, makes a
Windows-based program called SongShow Plus that combines
slide-making features with a database of hymn lyrics and
Bible verses that can be displayed with a presentation
projector. 

Bigger churches that have had integrated presentation
systems for years are finding new ways to use their
equipment. Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in
Montgomery, Ala., has the video and audio equipment to
produce its own television programming and streaming
Webcasts of Sunday services (www.frazeronline.tv) for
interested people who cannot physically make it to church.
Remote-controlled cameras are placed in parts of its
2,300-seat sanctuary that are hard to see, like the
baptismal area. During his sermon the pastor uses a remote
control to flip through PowerPoint slides shown on large
screens by two NEC Nighthawk projectors. 

The enhanced audio and video can prove helpful to older
members of the congregation, not just restless teenagers.
"Generally, with high-tech kind of stuff, I tend to think
of young people as being the most impacted," said Rusty
Taylor, the business administrator at Frazer. "But quite
frankly what I'm finding is that it's the older people who
really enjoy it because it magnifies the words for them and
gives them close-up pictures or gives them a good seat no
matter where they sit." 

And video effects appeal, of course, to younger members who
have grown up with computers and video games and summer
action movies, many churches have found. Brian Behm, who
has attended North Heights Lutheran Church in Arden Hills,
Minn., for most of his 24 years, said he appreciated the
presentation technology as long as it did not overshadow
the service. 

"For me, what's more important is the substance of what's
going on," said Mr. Behm, who said that the church recently
added a weekly service just for young adults. "It wasn't
about adding flash to the services - they had to change
what they were talking about. What's pertinent to a
40-year-old is different to what's important to a
20-year-old college kid." 

Osbourn Ross, an administrator at the Calvary Cathedral of
Praise, said that some members of the congregation were
initially wary when elaborate sound and video systems were
incorporated into their worship service. 

"They thought we had gone overboard and gotten way too
elaborate," he said. "Then, after a while, they settled
down and realized it was the wave of the future and we
needed to go in that direction." 

Although gaining acceptance from members can be the biggest
hurdle, integrating high-end technology into houses of
worship can present other challenges. Central Synagogue, a
landmark Moorish Revival building dating from 1872, was
painstakingly rebuilt after a devastating fire nearly
destroyed it in 1998. "In 1872, they didn't think about
distributed sound systems or reverberation or video because
it didn't exist," said Mr. Berkow, the design consultant. 

He went on to design a system that could properly amplify
both the spoken word and music from the synagogue's
4,600-pipe organ by discreetly tucking speakers and
microphones as well as video cameras into the building's
recreated interior. "The aesthetic consideration was
extreme," Mr. Berkow said. "In Central Synagogue, the ark
is a main architectural feature and you're not allowed to
block it. You can't put speakers in front of it." 

Robert Scott, a sales manager with Fowler's design group
who has worked on church systems around the country, said:
"If you've got a church that's got a clean ceiling line,
hanging projectors from the ceiling is not an option,
because that now becomes obtrusive and draws attention to
the equipment itself, and we don't want to do that. We want
the attention drawn to the screens and the message that's
coming across the screens." 

St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, a Catholic
church in Covington, Ky., incorporated a powerful sound
system into its majestic 950-seat sanctuary during a recent
renovation. The main speakers are camouflaged and painted
the same color as the room's pillars. "The tour guides
challenge people to find the speakers," said Jennifer
Weber, executive director of the Cathedral Foundation, a
group that maintains the building. 

Regardless of denomination, getting the message out is the
goal of any religious institution, and technology will
undoubtedly play a growing role. "The message hasn't
changed in 2,000 years," Mr. Scott said. "The way we
deliver that message to our congregations - that's what's
changing." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/technology/circuits/16CHUR.html?ex=1022913365&ei=1&en=db222c93fd1d61ad

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