Churches go high-tech

Church leaders are presenting services differently today from even five years ago, and technology is leading that shift, said Don Garrett, founder of Inspirational Media Associates, a Phoenix-based company specializing in church multimedia systems for 50 years.

"Church people are attending movies with full surround-sound systems," Garrett said. "They are not content anymore just to sit in the pew and listen to a poorly developed or poorly operating sound system."

Northwest Side churches are installing premium sound systems, theatrical lighting, large screens, projectors and even small-scale recording studios.

"The industry is driving it and the church members are demanding it," Garrett said. "What the churches are doing is taking advantage of this new technology and using it to benefit their own message."

Aural-visual stimulation

Marshall Sanders, director of music for St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at 7650 N. Paseo del Norte, said technology benefits churches because today, members of society are stimulated both visually and aurally.

"In the last 20 years, we have learned that people respond to many more stimuli," Sanders said. "We've been trying to figure out how to get smells into worship because we think there might be something there, too."

Worship at St. Andrew's now rivals entertainment at movie theaters and concerts, Sanders said.

"The older, established churchgoers aren't necessarily in need of this kind of stimuli," Sanders said. "But to try and reach today's generations, who have grown up embodied in television, cinema and cell phones, we feel like we need to go to that place that they can identify with to communicate our message — in our case that message is Jesus."

Along with members of the church, Marshall installed the more high-tech systems at St. Andrews. Those include a video-projection system, audio equipment and theatrical lighting.

St. Andrew's leaders also have used technology in teaching children through a high-tech puppet ministry started three years ago called K'deo —the merging of children with God.

A video with scripts is produced ahead of time and played behind a puppet show performed for children, Sanders said.

"In trying to communicate with children, we really had to go where they are — it's hard to hold their attention because they are immersed in sight and sound even more than young adults," Sanders said.

Different kind of churchgoing

Garrett's company installed the electronic systems at Oro Valley Church of the Nazarene, 500 W. Calle Concordia.

Larry Vinyard, worship pastor at the church, said technology has made the churchgoing experience vastly different from that of the past.

"In our homes there's tons of technology available, and then you go to church and it feels archaic," Vinyard said. "In today's world, if you don't have technology in the church you don't even have what people have in their homes."

Vinyard's church has surround sound, theatrical lighting, screens for projection and a projection system that takes input from DVDs, laptops and cameras. The church even has a small recording studio.

"Anywhere you go, there are things for all the senses," Vinyard said. "We do a better job communicating with people when we are able to use those tools."

Vinyard said technology has even made life easier for the church's sound operator because the church has an automated control board with presets.

Visual elements have also changed worship time at the Oro Valley church.

"We have two 9-by-12 screens in front and we use them different ways," Vinyard said. "It's like PowerPoint, only it's more fun."

The church also has cameras installed to highlight the pastor or other areas of interest on the screens during worship.

"It brings you really close and it makes the worship time more intimate," Vinyard said. "You have cameras making the image larger than life."

Recording studio for choir

The small-scale, digital recording studio at the church allows choir performers to prerecord performances that the sound operator then lays in behind live performances, Vinyard said.

"When the children's choir does presentations, it's hard to pick them up (on microphone) when they are moving around," Vinyard said. "In a matter of a couple hours, they will have completely recorded all the music to their musical."

The church even sells CDs of the worship service immediately following it for $5.

The technology "really opens up a whole world of what you can do," Vinyard said.

Churches are also opening up their pocketbooks for these systems.

The average church sound system costs about $160,000, Garrett said.

His company has installed smaller systems for churches on a more conservative budget as well as installing multimillion-dollar systems, he said.

But the trend isn't isolated to any particular part of the country; in fact, the desire for technology sometimes travels with the pastor.

When pastors who've experienced technology in church move to a different church, they want the same bells and whistles they had at their previous church, Garrett said.

"We're riding that wave of technology to where we are today," he said. "I don't think we've seen the end of the technology, that's what's exciting about the business. Every day is a new day."