Video Killed the Radio Star

Since our beginning Renovate has incorporated video in our worship gatherings. We have used video to project song lyrics, share short films that raise questions, and cast images that inspire. Video in our gatherings is as normal part of our liturgy.

I’m sure it came as a surprise to many that we took an intentional break from our video over 4 weeks ago. No lyrics projected, no images, and no short videos…we haven’t even set up the screens. Don’t get me wrong, there are many wonderful uses for video and projection within the context of worship however there are also times when technology has a way of creating distance between others and ourselves. At its best video has the capacity to paint vivid pictures for the mind body and soul however it also has the capacity to overload us to the point where we become desensitized to the world around us.

During our video break we’ve printed out lyrics to songs on sheets of paper to share and sing along with (there is something wonderful about holding a song sheet with another person and singing together). Also in conjunction with our video break Dave Nagel (our Worship Cultivator) has given his musicians a four-week “Sabbath” from playing on Sundays. The hope of this Sabbath for our musicians is to give them both rest from the need to “produce” and the opportunity to reflect on why we offer our gifts in this way.

These intentional breaks from our regular liturgical practice has created other opportunities within our worship like having selected people read Scripture from their seats for all to hear.

This video break has served to remind us that we are not measured by our level of production (as individuals and as a church), but rather through our identification as one of God’s children.

The “Progress” God

We are a culture of progress. A combination of advances in technology, science, and social enlightenment have made “today” better than “yesterday”. Whether it has been technologies invented to bring us light in our homes, medicines discovered that cure disease, or bigotries defeated for the benefit of cross-cultural relationship we as a society/humanity have progressed.

And ironically, just as we recognize where we’ve come from we also recognize where we need to go (we are still a long way off from racial equality in this country). So we move on, working toward a better tomorrow.

In all of these ways, our desire for and participation towards, progress are good and true. However is it possible that the notion of “progress” also carries with it a dark side? One that might not lead us towards a more hopeful future for all but instead move us deeper towards injustice and imbalance?

Progress becomes problematic (and even harmful) when it comes by a purely humanistic understanding of the world. In this sense, those moving towards betterment seek to achieve it through the autonomy of humanity. Their “Triune-Progress-god” is one of science, technology, and economy. In this model progress happens as people push scientific limits to discover how “the world works”, develop technologies that serve for the luxury of our existence, and set up economies for prosperity. It constructs a society, a “tower”, that is strong, tall, and shiny…seemingly flawless.

When we serve human betterment through the gods of science, technology, and economy, we become people who construct our own Tower of Babel. A towering society prides itself on its “magnificence”, a spectacle of what can be accomplished when people work together to move forward. Yet when our betterment comes apart from Divine participation and rests solely on our own self aggrandizement we make severe flaws in the tower’s “construction”. This is the story of our Western modern culture as well as the story of how empire always operates.

In this version of “progress” betterment only comes to those who are benefactors of the Tower (the living situation at the “top floor” is certainly better than that of those in the shadows of the tower). Our human systems on their own are unable to bring about complete, whole, true harmony for all.

And when the “Progress” god fails and the Tower falls? It brings devastation (ex: the market collapse of ’09). In the midst of the Tower’s rubble and ashes, the collapse also brings with it possibility; a possibility that our progress might once again resume, yet this time not solely on the might of human autonomy but rather through the tandem movement of both humanity and the God of progress.

In this sense we become co-laborers not for a Tower that will one day topple, but co-laborers for a Kingdom that will bring lasting peace, justice, and equity for all.

Where do you see example of human progress that although bring good to some also bring oppression to others?