Today was a great day at Access…We had several people baptized just prior to our first service. We’ll be telling their stories next week so make sure you come and hear how God has been working in and through the people of Access.
I also just want to say that we are blessed with an amazing tech team at Access. Today during our first service we experienced an equipment failure that produced some unwanted noise and ultimately forced us to cut worship a little bit short. It’s unfortunate that anytime something like this happens the tech guys generally get the brunt of the complaints and or nasty looks. It’s always good to remember that they are working with cables, computers, and electronics and sometimes those things just break. Our tech team is awesome. The end.
Finally, come to the night of worship at my house this Wednesday. You won’t regret it. Oh and Chris Scott wins the award for epic drink-spill of the day. Have a look.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Portman introduces the concept of the Information-Action Ratio. Portman’s ratio aimed to measure “the relationship between a piece of information and what action, if any, a consumer of that information might reasonably be expected to take once learning it.” In theory, a culture that had a low intake of information would have a high information-action ratio because they were more likely to act upon the small amount of information they received. Conversely, a culture that had access to enormous amounts of information would have a low-information action ratio. This is a result of being paralyzed by the enormous amounts of information and either not knowing where to begin or not knowing how to sort which pieces of information required action and which did not.
It goes without saying that humans today consume more information than at any other time in history. Between television, the Internet, and social networking, information is readily available at the click of a button. We can easily access news spanning the globe and get real-time updates on hundreds of friends in a matter of seconds. It would be impossible to act on all of the information one gathers in just a few minutes of surfing the internet. Thus, we live in an age of an extremely Low Information-Action Ratio (LIAR).
What does having a Low Information-Action Ratio mean for the church? For worship? If our technologically inclined culture trains us to merely consume information without acting on it, will we find ourselves complacent with not acting on the knowledge we receive of Jesus and His Gospel? If worship is a response to the revelation of who God is, will living with a Low Information-Action Ratio result apathetic worship?
First and foremost, it is important that the church resist the tendency to reduce the preaching of the Word to simply communicating information. Secondly, we must examine whether or not using overly familiar presentation methods (such as screens, media clips, etc.) actually makes it easier for people to ignore the content that they are being presented with.
I welcome and embrace many of the technologies I have alluded to in this post, but I think these are questions that are worth wrestling with. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
One of the most memorable and powerful worship experiences I have had in quite sometime happened in this small room with about forty-five students from Savannah, Georgia. A friend of mine, who is a youth pastor, invited me to come and lead worship for his summer camp in Panama City Beach, Florida. On the fourth and final night of the camp we sang through Misty Edwards’, “You Won’t Relent”. My friend came up toward the end of the song to say a few words and close with a prayer. As he prayed the students began to sing out the verse of the song:
“I set you as a seal upon my heart, as a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death,
Jealousy demanding as the grave and many waters
Cannot quench this love”
At first it was just a few young girls singing, then it swelled into the entire group singing out with absolutely no leadership from the platform. It was beautiful. The band continued to play as the students literally worshiped together in complete unity. My prayer as a worship leader is always that I will not add to or take away from what God is doing in a group of people. I simply want to enter into the work He has already started and participate in it.
