We were all seated in a conference room, about 100 of us, listening to our captivating guest speaker. He was a natural storyteller, and we were spellbound with his artful verbal skills.
At one point, our future-trend speaker said, “It is vital for us to understand the power of images in our generation, and the capacity for storytelling the Kingdom of God through visual means. Images can be far more potent than words – don’t deny them their place.”
This was a curious statement, as he had come unprepared with a PowerPoint, Keynote, MediaShout or other type of visual addition to his presentation. Only a few of us in the room seemed to have noticed this glaring omission, but his prosaic teaching was creating pictures in our minds’ eye.
Then, something unforeseen happened. As he uttered these words on the power of images, one of the technical people manning the dormant projector at the back hit a button, and an image of his attractive screen saver flashed up on a side wall, almost out of the site line of the attendees.
At that very moment, every eye in the room jerked away from the speaker – still in mid-sentence – and locked in on the image now resting on the side wall of the venue.
For a few seconds, even the speaker didn’t connect with the irony of the moment. Then, laughter and revelation filled the room. An image had literally stepped out on the stage, grabbed the eyes, attention and thoughts of every person in the room, and demanded their focus. The speaker may as well have had the microphone taken away. The image won the day.
It was a messenger. It was an angel. It bore a story. It sounded its trumpet, and like Mary, we sat in awe and listened.
In other words, the image was storytelling, messaging to us, and it’s oratorical skills dominated the imaginations of the crowd even if only for a few seconds.
It has been said that theology is “faith seeking understanding.” Great visual presentations can literally lead a soul backward, forward and side to side. Envisioning the future in worship will demand that we take seriously the profound strength of images, be they borne by cathedral walls, cinema screens or church projectors. A picture is not worth a thousand words – it is beyond the quantifications we apply to our utterances.
An image can be worth seeing, hearing, feeling and following. An image can stimulate the soul to missional action, amplify a character trait of God, or hold us in the palm of its hand and comfort us. An image can be an angel, a messenger of hope, if we will turn our attention to its declaration.
Use images wisely in worship, in your home, in the spaces in which you live. Allow them to be vessels through which God speaks to you, and to those you lead.
10 Comments
great story. It begs the question who was the speaker and what has he written? (that is probably an easier answer than asking who the angel was.)
Does God use Projections?
I remember realising one day, with a smile, that God is always ahead of us – he drew on a wall the message “Teke Teke Upharsin” way back in Ancient Times. Nothing we do in visual presentation will beat the impact of God’s hand writing on a wall (holy Graffiti?) all those years ago.
Good thoughts guys. No telling on the speaker, Rob.
God is indeed ahead of us Heather.
..it also makes good psychological-cognitive sense. With just under 2/3 of th population visual learners, an image can have a powerful impact (helpful or unhelpful) on the way many in an audience interpret and remember the information being shared. I loved the irony, though
Indeed. Just yesterday, it happened again. Someone was communicating among a small group of us, and a video screen came on disconnected from what was being spoken.
I would have thought the distraction would have caused us to glance, then refocus on the person. However, we all lingered on the screen much longer than I anticipated.
It was almost as if the group was “hoping” for an image to deliver a message that enriched the one verbally being communicated.
That’s why I always have a picture of Eric Clapton on the screen behind me when I am playing or speaking somewhere. In case I play a wrong note or say something stupid at least people can choose to be distracted by remembering someone more eloquent than me. I have no idea if it really works, but sometimes you just have to be innovative.
Nice, Norm. I use a picture of Rembrandt and his trusty dusty sidekick, Remdog.
That way… well, wait a minute. I’m not quite sure WHY I do it.
Shoot.
As you know, Dan, for years I have been having fun with images. A few years back I decided to experiment some with combining words and images. I ended up creating 50 small artworks (12″ x 18″) where I started with an image, added a caption and then later decided to expand the image & word interplay with some short free-form poetry. It was fun to see how much engagement could be created between an image and less that a hundred words. Ultimately I had the opportunity to have 48 of the artworks up for a show that combined a live musical performance together with an adjacent art gallery (for before and after the performance as well as during intermission). It was great fun! My biggest surprise though came during the musical performance itself as the musicians (who did have access to my images) decided to pick the ones they thought best reflected the feelings of each song they performed and used them on two large screens in the auditorium throughout the performance. The interplay between words / music / images / poetry / art / live performance was a great deal of fun and very engaging. I’ve put all of those artworks online at http://www.agiftofwonder.com for anyone who might like to see them. High resolution jpegs that were used for each artwork are available for download under the “art downloads” tab by choosing “No One Knew Where The River Ended” (which is the name of the collection). Enjoy!
Lovely my friend!
Romans 12:20
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”
This time of year brings incredibly bright, vivid colour as trees lose their chlorophyll, revealing their true colour. The imagery captivates me every year. The verse above, although taken from a passage on the wrath of God, is one of my favourite verses to use when talking about seeing God in our world. Contrasting this idea of God’s “invisible qualities” vs “been clearly seen.”
This could go on forever and may well get expounded upon in my blog entry for the week, but for now, I will just say that seeing God in nature at this time of year is like the image that stole the attention of the audience… Like bugs to a light, I am drawn to God. haha… and occasionally I need to be swatted!
Cheers!
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