We all love to go to concerts  and see the spectacle, all the lighting and video gear and you really want to try to figure out how to do that at your church. We love to make the coolest new look and stretch the limits. I know the feeling; I’m totally guilt of having those desires and dreams and its not bad to have dreams and ideas, but we need to remember our primary purpose, to create an atmosphere for people to worship.

So often, as production and lighting designers, its easy to get wrapped up in what we CAN do, that we don’t stop and ask if we SHOULD. We want to create the next cool design, and we want to use every feature of every light that we can. Its easy and its understandable. I totally get wrapped up in that all the time. I see it all the time and I see people act on it; I see leadership buying into this vision of concert-like lighting. I would like to say that if this works for your church and helps your body of worshipers engage in worship, awesome! But the truth is, most of the time, this actually prevents people from engaging. It convinces them to be spectators, not participators.

In reality, our designs should match the tone, sound, and vibe of what is happening on stage. We should be pointing people to the glory of God, and ultimately we should be guiding people and enabling people to engage in worshiping. We don’t want spectators, we want participants.