The Father, the Son and the Holy JumboTron

In the new Media Reformation, churches employ high-tech gizmos and hip spin to boost their diminishing flocks.

By Caroline Tiger

April 15, 2002 | "What did Jesus do?" asks Michael Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg Church in Tipp City, Ohio. "Jesus spoke in parables, which was storytelling -- it wasn't abstract ideas. It was passing on wisdom through the telling of stories."

And telling stories, says Slaughter, is what he is doing every Sunday, albeit with an arguably unholy twist. Where Jesus might have relied on little more than his voice and a nice turn of phrase, Slaughter employs a huge screen and Sony 3-chip studio cameras, an SVHS-format video system, Media 100 nonlinear digital video editing equipment and a Hughes/JVC 320 projection system -- all of it operated by something called "the worship team."

He also operates a Web site, complete with discussion boards. "We are doing a series on marriage and home," reads one posting. "I'm looking for a video clip that shows a wife supporting her husband and vice versa. Any ideas?" A response: "In Father of the Bride Part 2 (my wife made me watch it) there are a coupla scenes when the husband totally pampers his pregnant wife." Other discussion threads: subwoofer placement; which mini-DV camcorder to buy; and which image, converted into a slide and presented via PowerPoint during a service, will best communicate "sanctification."

Signs of the apocalypse? Heavens no, say the leaders of up-and-coming "media churches." Hell yes, say critics of the trend. For his part, Slaughter calls the Media Reformation, a label he coined in his book "Out on the Edge," a revolutionary bid by wired church leaders to keep religion alive. If the church doesn't adopt electronic media -- the language of the postmodern culture -- it will lose the next generation and the next and eventually die out, he says. The evidence? According to Christianity Today, church attendance went from close to 50 percent of the population in the late '50s to 43 percent in 1999. In other words, church attendance diminished even as baby boomers came along and increased market share.

But at Ginghamsburg, attendance has gone from 1,200 to 4,000 since Slaughter began integrating multimedia into his services in December 1994. He started with a single screen and has continued to add bells and whistles ever since, boosting his flock and his reputation. In fact, Slaughter's success and aggressive outreach efforts have prodded a growing number of pastors into the digital age, bringing slick production values and a hip spin on doctrine into churches across the country. New media churches have even popped up in the typically staid Northeast.

"We have a new stained-glass window," says Leonard Sweet, dean of the theological school at Drew University in New Jersey. "It's called the screen."

A typical service at Ginghamsburg begins with the church band's jazzy rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," piped through a state-of-the-art surround-sound system. Congregants then watch a three-minute video clip from the "Wizard of Oz," specifically, Dorothy embarking on her journey with the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow. There are yellow bricks stacked on the altar table. The theme of the service? Traveling companions: You need them. Don't go down that yellow brick road (to God) alone.

Next: A prayer, another song, a dramatic sketch and a short message from Slaughter followed by another band number. This time the musicians break into "I'll Be There for You," the theme from "Friends." The lyrics appear on a theater-size screen.

The Ginghamsburg service is as staged, though not as well-rehearsed, as a Broadway show. Slaughter says the worship team began to conceptualize this particular program four days earlier, when Ginghamsburg's four full-time media staffers, plus some of the church's media volunteers (there are 75 to 100), gathered in a conference room on the church's 100-acre campus to brainstorm.

Slaughter describes the creative process behind the worship services in his book, which can be purchased at Ginghamsburg's online store or at the conferences hosted by the pastor and his worship team. At their Ohio facility the group recently led a one-day seminar called the M3 Conference (the three "m's" are multimedia, multisensory and multicultural), which was attended by 500 pastors (at $90 a pop) from all over the country. The day consisted of two keynote speeches and four "break-out workshops in the worship arts," which range from multimedia to graphic design. The gathering was a variation on the Media Reformation conference that Ginghamsburg has hosted in 30 cities nationwide since 1996.

Though he is often identified as the leader of the media church trend, Slaughter isn't the only one involved in what has become a lucrative cottage industry. Companies like Highway Video, a small production outfit based in Mountain View, Calif., produce videos as worship tools, selling them to interested churches and religious organizations. The content of Highway Video's creations, each about three to five minutes long, varies from documentary-style man-on-the-street interviews about religion and spirituality, to abstract images of fast-moving clouds superimposed with scriptural verse.

In one video, called "Are You Ready?" images of a subway platform with cars racing by in fast-motion and people walking down a busy city street flash by as the voice of a young man says, "I've been following you all day. I saw you talking to your friends, to your family -- I have so many gifts for you. That fiery rise over the low hills this morning? My idea. So was that cool breeze over the mountain." In the end, "he" asks if "you" are ready to receive his gifts. It's God as a sort of all-powerful benevolent stalker.

Next page: The church has to become as attractive as the Super Bowl, MTV or "The X-Files"