News ¢ A medical doctor, Dr Low Wye Mun serves with the Worship & Music team at Holland Village Methodist Church. He was the moderator of Episode 2 of Conversations. / Illustration by Lau Peng Leong
Online worship Technology and the arts
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hen attending an online church service at home in front of your laptop, TV or tablet on a Sunday morning, have you been “sitting around in your singlet, with one leg up and coffee in hand”? Dr Mark Chan may have painted an extreme picture but his joke encapsulated the purpose of Conversations Episode 2: Technology & the Arts, a session hosted by Methodist School of Music (MSM). It was a rich and lively discussion, focused on music and language in the context of the televisual platform, and how these might be harnessed to: • enhance worship in a deeper and more meaningful way • bring about a more cohesive worship experience. The panel speakers were: Dr Mark Chan, Ernest Lau Professor of systematic theology at Trinity Theological College. He teaches hermeneutics, homiletics and intersection of theology and contemporary thought. He worships at Covenant Community Methodist Church. Rev Raymond Fong, Pastor-in-charge of Wesley Methodist Church. He has more than 25 years of involvement in church worship as leader and musician. In the 2020 MSM Certificate of Christian Worship, he encouraged all to “do less, and go deep”. Ms Shirley Bong, head of the Media Communications & Youth department at the Chapel of the Resurrection. Her MLitt studies in Theology & the Arts focused on the place of emotions in Christian contemporary worship.
The basis for our online church worship Following Conversations Episode 1: Insights & Reflections on online worship (Methodist Message, November 2021), Episode 2 explored the relationship between worship and technology and the arts in the ‘digital sacred space’ that the pandemic has compelled us to embrace. Indisputably, the online worship (OW) space allows inclusiveness and outreach access when we are unable to attend on-site church services. Whatever the form of the OW service, the speakers agreed it must be underscored by two things: • the common purpose of worshipping and glorifying God • the desire to gather as the people of God in worship.
A deeper and more meaningful worship Stressing the importance of ensuring a firm theological foundation for online worship, Dr Mark Chan shared OW experiences that impacted him. Those experiences were “personal, moving, spiritually enriching, I felt I was seated in the sanctuary, a part of the corporate worship… the worship was not a performance for me, I was a part of the worship.” The recordings were simply made with just a camera, but they embodied the ideal that “worship is the people of God gathered to perform for an audience of One.” He raised the matter of arts in worship as being part of a larger issue of arts in Christianity. In this, Dr Chan questioned whether churches were giving enough attention to the aesthetics of the worship space, and if they could do more with the digital tools available to creating meaningful OW. Suggesting that orchestrating an OW is a “production” just as much as “preaching is a performance”, he stated that technology has its own language and it is not neutral. If we are conditioned to appreciate high quality videos, but the church has a very different (lower) standard, it can detract from the worship experience. We must always remember the “God-ward dimension” of true worship. To prevent the danger of OW becoming merely the consumption of a religious programme rather than participative worship, it is better to present a de-centred but synchronised worship where congregants gather at the same time instead of viewing a pre-recorded service.
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METHODIST MESSAGE April 2022
