When one of my college students was in elementary school, he enjoyed watching hour-long videos. But now watching something that long is stressful, and he can no longer pay attention in class. The cause, he said, is TikTok, a social media platform that delivers an “infinite stream” of short videos.
My student is not alone in worrying about how screen-mediated technologies shape us. Evidence is mounting that they distract our attention, degrade our abilities, cause mental health problems, and interfere with personal relationships—enough evidence that churches should curtail the use of screens during worship services or eliminate them entirely.
Technologies aren’t neutral; they shape the messages they transmit. Physical books suggest permanence. The Bibles and hymnals still found in many pews will be there year after year. Images on screens, though, are ephemeral. Valuable things may appear there, such as Bible passages. But we risk trivializing Scripture when we serve it up as “content” alongside stock photographs for sermon illustrations; hymn lyrics, but often without musical notation that facilitates good congregational singing; AI-generated “art” literalizing biblical passages that previous generations were forced to ponder; church activity advertisements; a count-down clock; unnecessary captioning, such as the word “prayer” projected while someone prays; video of the pastor blown up to Nebuchadnezzar-like proportions; and images of Jesus—cartoon Jesus, clip art Jesus, and photos of actors portraying Jesus—sometimes in sanctuaries where a permanent representation of Jesus would not be allowed.
If the content on church screens resembles anything more than a social media feed, it's a PowerPoint presentation like those found in classrooms and business meetings, a technology widely reviled as boring, ugly, and prone to user error. Slides convey information. They rarely inspire awe, reflection, or transcendence.
Worship planners might assume that worshipers desire, even need, screens, but a tour of churches in my small city—at least a dozen of which have no sanctuary screen—demonstrates that churches are not powerless when it comes to forming worshipers’ desires and capacities.
Members of the growing Orthodox church stand during its two-hour (or longer) service in a sanctuary filled with beautiful (but static) icons. Students at the Catholic church near campus want to sing in Latin. Young children, like those in children’s worship services I’ve led, are able to sit in silent reflection with no screen to entertain them—a capacity many worship planners assume adults don’t have.
People need—whether they know it or not—worship that provides respite from short-form videos, AI slop-filled social media feeds, and unappealing slide shows that bombard them elsewhere. And churches need to show people a God who is everything these technologies are not—beautiful, awesome, and eternal.
About the Author
David Schweingruber is a member of Trinity Christian Reformed Church in Ames, Iowa, where he has served as a worship planner, liturgist, Sunday school teacher, and children and worship leader. He is an associate professor at Iowa State University.