Current Issue

Jan/Feb 2012

Print Article     Email Article

  Page 1 of 4   >>

by Greg Persinger

As a consultant I work with many different churches in all parts of the country. While working with these churches, I get the privilege of meeting lots of different people and spending time worshipping with them.

If there is anything that I have learned about churches, it is that no two are alike. This is especially true for worship styles, as worship styles are as varied as the people that fill up the churches.

I personally am glad that there are many churches to choose from. Having many different church choices allows people to choose one with a worship style that they feel comfortable with. A great example of this is a comparison and contrast of the church I grew up in, where my parents still attend, and the church that my wife and I attend with our children.

My parents’ church is a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, very conservative and formal in its teaching, and very formal in its worship. Every week you are assured that you will sing a selection of classic hymns from the Lutheran Hymnal such as “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” or “I know My Redeemer Lives,” accompanied by a great sounding pipe organ. You will also hear various music selections sung by the choir.

In contrast, my church in Nashville, Tennessee, Cross Point Community, is conservative yet conversational in its teaching and informal in its worship. Each week we sing a selection of songs written by contemporary Christian artists such as Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, and David Crowder, accompanied by a full rock band. Video screens have replaced the hymnal, a choir is a rarity, and the closest thing that we have to a pipe organ is a synthesizer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that one worship style is right and one worship style is wrong; that’s not the case at all, just that they are different. Two groups of people worshipping Jesus Christ, in two different ways.

So by now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with lighting for worship. Well, each church is going to light their worship based on their worship style, and just as each worship style is different, their lighting is going to be different, yet the concepts behind the lighting are timeless.

The Fundamentals of Worship Lighting
Broken down into their basic parts, there are four primary purposes for using creative lighting. These are visibility, selective visibility, mood, and modeling.

First we use lighting for visibility. This is the primary reason for lighting, for if the subject is not lit and is in the dark, the audience will not see it.

The second reason we use lighting ties directly to the first. Selective visibility is the use of lighting to call attention to an area of the stage that you want the audience to focus on, while not calling attention to an area of the stage you don’t want the audience to focus on. The best example of this is brightly lighting the area of the stage you want the audience to look at while keeping the areas of the stage you don’t want the audience to look at dark. By selecting what you light and what you don’t light, you select what is visible to the audience and what is not visible to the audience, selectively forcing the audience to look at what you want them to look at.

  Page 1 of 4   next page >>

Greg Persinger is the owner of Vivid Illumination. He can be reached at greg@vividillumination.com.