Church Without Distraction.

This is the end goal. Creating an environment for God to move freely into the hearts of the people in attendance while minimizing distractions to the point that people are unaware they are in church. This is our heart and this is what is constantly on our minds when it comes to tech.
The following blog article provides raw insight into what we see as an effective approach to creating a church worship experience that helps people center their focus on God.





People > Gear.

As any church tech knows, there are a hundred and one things that need to happen to keep weekend services running smoothly. From every lyric slide to every mic adjustment to every light setting and every chair placement, it’s paramount that everything we do be carried out with a focus on the most important part of church: creating a space for people to bump into Jesus.
Yes, the gear is necessary and important for even the smallest of worship gatherings, but those of us in tech production know that we have the privilege of shaping that experience for tens or hundreds or thousands of people to come and worship God.
At Summit, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we understand how easy it is, week after week, for each church service to feel monotonous. We’re all guilty of becoming envious of the latest technology or the newest feature to implement in next week’s service.
Be both challenged and encouraged in those same moments to focus back on the opportunity you’ve been given to craft an entire worship experience for people to be fixated with Jesus at the center of the room.


Beauty & Artistry in the Realm of Production.

Church production teams not only play a part in bringing people to Christ, we also get to mold and shape the environment for people to engage, through their senses, in experiencing Jesus.
We see these moments as opportunities for excellence and outlets for artistic beauty, none of which is for the sake of being cool or hip or entertaining, but for the sake of creating an incredible moment to worship God.
We believe that a church service is not just a spoken word moment. God works in and speaks through every facet of a worship gathering, often times using art as a vehicle through which He pulls people into a deeper experience of Him.
Creating a church service that draws the attention of people on God requires every part of production involved working together to create an immersive experience.




Making The Tech Disappear.

For us, we consider an immersive experience as one with a lack of distraction. Within a worship service, all of the technical elements that contribute to church production should exist to draw people in without becoming the element they’re looking at.
In other words, the technology exists to enhance the environment by disappearing from the awareness of the people gathered so that those who gather can be more fully drawn into what God is doing.
There are many ways to create an immersive experience and each church has their own DNA which makes those experiences different in many ways.
But when we step back and remember that our primary focus for every service is to use the tech to help point to Jesus, we quickly realize that we have an incredible opportunity to draw people into an intimate experience with Christ every weekend, one which requires us to critically think through our investments in technology to steward these opportunities well.


Navigating The Seas Of Disagreement.

We work with hundreds of churches, and arguably one of the most difficult challenges each church faces in creating their own respective environments for their worship services is the tension that exists between leadership, worship, and tech staff, especially in situations where decisions need to be made about the technology at play.
Each role comes with a different perspective. The worship, leadership, and tech teams all have different ideas about what is necessary and what is extra. This often leads to difficult conversations with people disagreeing about adding new elements to the overall production.
The real danger lies beneath the surface of mere disagreement or differing opinions, and it comes when we tie up our identities in our tasks. When we allow this to happen, anything someone might have to say as a point of feedback or challenge for this or that specific task can become a threat to us on a personal level.
It’s in these conversations that we need to remember that we are all a part of the Body of Christ. We may disagree as individuals but, in the end, we don’t serve ourselves and our identities are not in the roles that we fulfill every weekend. Our identities are in Christ. We serve Him. His will is always greater than ours.



Environment and Atmosphere in the House of God.


We fully realize that another tension exists in our culture surrounding the topic of church production. We’re aware that production in church, especially in our modern day context, can very easily start to feel like we really only care about fancy toys and rock concert performances.
However, as we see this larger picture of what God is doing through churches all over the world today, we see production as a piece of this grand tapestry God uses to create an environment and an experience within a service that draws the attention of all people fully on Him.
He purposefully made all of creation to exist as beautiful, worshipful reminders for us of His glory and majesty. The heavens declare the glory of God. Let the earth be glad and let the sea resound.
When we stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or at the convergence of land and ocean, or on the summit of a mountain, a sense of awe and wonder overwhelms us with the glory of God displayed in creation, and we’re far more inclined to more fully encounter God in those moments.
Similarly, we live in a digital age with access to all kinds of technology that we can use to create beauty that elicits a deeper experience of worship. Yes, technology can absolutely be abused within our church walls, but when technology in church production is used with a proper focus, there’s no denying that the God who spoke all of creation into existence, whose creations have drawn us into deeper worship experiences of Him, can absolutely do the same through church production.