Consuming media has an effect on our subliminal cognitive faculties. McLuhan would say the content of the television that you’re watching is far less important (McLuhan would say that content doesn’t matter at all but I think that takes it a bit far) than the fact that you’re sitting silent and motionless for hours while asking your brain to process more information (in the form of light and sound) than it was ever designed to handle. That at the core is the meaning of “the medium is the message”.
“The ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat that the burglar throws to distract the watchdog of the mind.”
“Now” is where we are at, but how was our understanding of God shaped (for good and bad) in each technological era? Now, what principles can we learn from those to guide us through the current era and next era?
For example, today the internet enables anonymity while the printing press did the opposite and allowed people to escape anonymity by publishing and proliferating their written output. This lead to new “authorities” on religion, philosophy. etc. based on celebrity/popularity.
When we lead the music (or preach or teach), we are there primarily for the benefit of the other people in the room. What we are trying do at church is follow Jesus’ example, who “came to serve, not to be served.” Matthew 20:28
People with no social authority suddenly gain access to previously inaccessible channels of idea distribution
With proper reflection I believe that we can see what the next story will be, much like McLuhan saw what the next story would be. A personal example – and boy do I wish I had acted on this! Early on in the MP3 revolution I sat for a few hours and thought and wrote about some implications I was foreseeing.
McLuhan also said that “Humans are the sex organs of the machine world”. Meaning? Technologies do not self-replicate – a computer does not cozy up to a cell phone and produce a little iPhone (or similar pocket-sized computer). The actions/desires of human being determine the course on new technology.
McLuhan:
Michael Spencer: “The Big Worship Goof”
Here are the highlights:
- We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what a worship service is. We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.
- We have tied ourselves to the Christian music industry and its endless appetite for change and profit. We have accepted that all of our worship leaders are going to be very, very young people. Traditional worship is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
- Diversity, generational compatibility, even simplicity are all being blown up. Worship is now a major audience event, led by skilled entertainers, aimed at a demographic and judged by the audience reaction.
- Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play.
- Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
- We have a lot of happy people right now. They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs played by a kickin’ band. They have little idea of worship in vocation, in family, in ordinary work or in silence. They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.
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There are a number of things I want to comment on here, and I make these comments as a musician and Pastor of Worship who is training people to be part of, as Spencer calls it, “a kickin’ band”. But I am also one who believes that music is only a small part of worship which, although powerful, cannot be allowed to become what is seen as the only form of worship. I explored that idea a while ago in a post call “What Is Worship?”
1. Spencer claims that singing is getting lost in all this. I agree. I have noticed this in my own church, having grown up there and now returning to it as a pastor, the singing is not as vigorous as it once was. It seems to me that people once sang much louder, that they filled room with song – not with pitch perfect delivery, but with enthusiasm and confidence. Too many people have forgotten how to express themselves in song. People no longer sing because the room is too loud for them to hear themselves or anyone else around them.
2. Some of this is certainly my generation’s fault. In some cases we’ve pushed too hard for modern songs and styles at the expense of the old. We want what the world has: a loud band to perform for us while we consume the experience of their performance. In a lot of cases the older generation, wanting to keep us around, has acquiesced. We, like over ambitious high school athletes, have taken the ball, run past the goal line, and kept right on running right out of the stadium. (Need a visual on that statement? Watch 4:10 to 5:04 of this video) We now have not only modern instrumentation but all the look and feel of a modern rock concert. Like a rock concert, the privileged few create the experience and the rest of us consume.
3. I’m not unhappy at all with having what some oldtimers call “Rock and Roll” in our church. It has a time and place when it is effective – but that time and place is not always and everywhere.
4. I am committed to addressing these issues and as I figure out how to do that I’ll try to keep you posted on this blog.