David Zimmer: Hello and welcome to Season 8 of the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
Bob Kauflin: My name is Bob Kauflin.
DZ: And it is great to be back together after a very long break.
BK: We’ve been slacking!
DZ: We have been extremely busy, actually.
BK: That’s true, that’s true. [laughter]
DZ: We have recorded, I mean, I can’t even sum up what we’ve done, but recorded multiple albums, put out multiple videos.
BK: Multiple albums, wow.
DZ: Recently the Knowing God album…
BK: Yep. Yep.
DZ: Is out. And we’ve been working on a Spanish album that’s releasing next year. Yes. So, and we put on a conference.
BK: Yes.
DZ: A WorshipGod conference?
BK: Yes. And a Worship Matters Intensive in there. Just for fun.
DZ: So we there’s never a dull moment around here in Sovereign Grace Music.
BK: No, but it’s great.
DZ: But what are we talking about today to kick off Season 8?
BK: Today, well, you mentioned the conference. It was the Worship God Conference… We did back in July. And at that conference, WorshipGod2,: One with Christ. We had a couple moments during different sessions where we had focused talks. Could have called it Ted Talk, but yeah. Everybody Ted Talks.
DZ: Yeah. But we’re not that cool.
BK: We’re not that cool. So we just call them FOCUS Talks [laughter], where we took like 15, 20 minutes to talk about a topic that was relevant to everyone. So Colin Buchanan did one. We’re gonna have him on the podcast later. And I did one on lyric projection. So we are talking today on how should we think about lyric projection on Sundays.
DZ: So, this is gonna be an entire podcast Bob? Why can’t you just put lyrics on a screen?
BK: Ya know, that kind of question.
DZ: How hard is it?
BK: That kind of question explains why we need to do this. [laughter] So, I did some study for this surprisingly, projection didn’t become popular till like the 80s or 90s, so I lived through that. I don’t know if you were born then… Yeah. You were born.
DZ: ’87.
BK: I get, yeah. Probably then. [laughter] When it started, you weren’t even born yet. And you don’t remember, we used to use overhead transparencies.
DZ: I remember those when and when I was in elementary school. That’s incredible.
BK: Those were great. You had the box of transparencies and, if you change the song, you didn’t have the song, someone have to like write it out on the thing. It was bold. It was a little bit fearful. So that was what first came, and this was, this all came along with contemporary music in the church.
DZ: Yeah, I was gonna say that because I mean, for people that used hymnals and maybe still could to this day use hymnals, they’re maybe rarely using a screen or projector.
BK: Yes. There, I mean, there are plenty of churches who don’t use lyric projection, but the majority of churches do. And there’s a tendency we have in the church to, just adapt to whatever technology is out there.
DZ: Right.
BK: And say, oh, we can use this. We can use this. And, incorporating new technology without thinking about it, can have unexpected results. Bad results. When you add technology, I’ve heard someone say this, when you add technology, you’re always taking something away. So say take, text, you don’t wanna get too much into technology here, but when you text someone, you’re taking away that personal interaction of a call. When you call someone, remember when the phone, remember when the phone was first invented? I don’t either. Remember that took away personal communication. So you’re always, there’s always a trade off with new technology.
BK: So most churches today use projection. I’m not sure that we always know what we’re doing… So in the, in this podcast and in this FOCUS talk, talked about three things we may not know about projection. First is we don’t always know why we use projection, second, we don’t always know how to use projection. Of course, you always need to know why before the how. And then we don’t always know the dangers of using projection. So first, we don’t always know why we use it. Now, most of us probably use lyric projection because we can. Yeah. I mean, I remember with the overhead transparency thing, like getting that projector was like amazing. And you, if you’re really cool, you had two, one on either side. So it’s like the double screen. So people could use both, but then you need two…
DZ: People.
BK: People, yeah. So smaller churches couldn’t do that and they didn’t need it. Yeah. So, we can use it. Maybe we inherited it. Maybe it’s just because everything, everybody else does it. Whatever reason a lot of people use it. But in the church, we need to think deeply and precisely about what we’re doing every Sunday. Especially as it relates to truth, because the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth. Paul tells us we are protecting the truth. And so we can’t just use it to show that we can. So there’s some guidelines, there’s some commands actually in Scripture that talk about what we’re supposed to do when we gather. One of them is in 1 Corinthians 14:12, where Paul says, whatever we do we’re to do intentionally to build others up.
BK: So he says, “So with yourselves, since you’re eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” So whatever we do, it should build up the church, which I think most people would say, yeah, duh! [laughter] Of course. But there’s another qualification. And that is, it should be clear. So that’s from 1 Corinthians 14:9. And this is a conversation where Paul is distinguishing between prophecy, which is clear, and tongues, which isn’t so clear. And he says, “So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.” So he’s just saying, look, some people might think it’s creative, some people might think it’s cool, it might be hip, it might be relevant. But the question we need to ask is, is it clear? And there’s a third reason or, Yeah that we use it and that it, it should, whatever we do should produce faith in God’s word. That’s what we’re aiming at in terms of a response from people. So he says in… Paul says in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We’re not just saying things. We’re not just visualizing things, putting words on a screen. We are seeking to build faith in the word of Christ, which specifically is the gospel more broadly is the word of God. So using those thoughts, I would say we use lyric projection to enable people to see, understand, and sing truth filled lyrics together in an undistracting, engaging, faith-filled way. That’s kind of the summary of what we’re gonna talk about. We use lyric projection to enable people to see, understand, and sing truth-filled lyrics together. And it could be more than singing in an undistracting, engaging faith-filled way. Not to add to those truths, not to overpower those truths, not to distract from those truths. Certainly not to replace those truths, not to make those truths better, ’cause what we do on a screen cannot do any of those things, and it’s not meant to do any of those things.
DZ: Right.
BK: Certainly not to give expression to my creative side. In these conversations. A lot of people, both musically and with projection, we talk about, well, I’m a creative, God’s a creator. I’m a creative. But when we gather as the church, it’s not about me being creative.
DZ: Yeah. And it’s not about me building myself up.
BK: Exactly. [laughter] Hey, look at what I can do.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We’re pointing to Jesus. We’re signposts, we’re direction, we’re pointers.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So I recently received an email that said, they were offering me 30,000 images to use for projection. I figured that out. If we did one image of Sunday, that would take 575 years.
[laughter]
BK: So I’m just thinking, man, that, what am I gonna do with 30,000 images?
DZ: Yes.
BK: And even the time to it takes to think through what images am I gonna use? So that that time, that’s time that could go maybe somewhere else. So our goal isn’t simply to be creative, it’s to enable people to see, understand, and sing truth-filled lyrics in undistracting, engaging, and faith-filled way, that’s why we use it. Saying we don’t always know how to use it. And because we don’t know the why, we often jump into the how. And in attempts to modernize the church or be more relevant, or even communicate more effectively, our impulse to use technology often exceeds our knowledge of how it works. So I wanna make three points about this under this point, we don’t always know how to use it. First, pursue clarity, not confusion. That goes back to the point that Paul makes about being clear. So how do you do that? Well, if you’re a projectionist, if there are any projectionist listening to this, I’d encourage you to arrive early.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: To rehearse with the musicians, ask questions. If you don’t understand something, I mean, at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, our projections arrive early. And if we do repeat a chorus, say, “Hey, are you gonna repeat that chorus again?” Or “Hey, this seems different.” They’re asking questions. Simple, application at that point is fonts should be big enough and simple enough so that they’re easy to read.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I’m not seeking to use fonts that, yeah. That are [laughter] are hard to read or too small or squished together or spread apart. Timing is huge for being clear. I remember once that was a conference where the…
DZ: Totally.
BK: The projectionist. Have you ever, has this ever happened to you?
DZ: Yes. [laughter]
BK: Every Sunday? Not here. The projectionist, every line was late. And I went to the guy who organized a conference that said, “It seems like every line is late.” He said, “Yeah, we’re using an intern.” And I said, “Well, maybe you could talk to the intern.”
[laughter]
DZ: Yeah. And I mean, there’s so many reasons why that’s distracting to the congregation.
BK: Yes.
DZ: But, you know some churches have like a confidence monitor too.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: And so…
BK: It’s a funny name, confidence.
DZ: Yeah. It doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. If it’s used improperly, but for that, that’s a screen in the back of the room, and it actually allows, it can be really helpful for song leaders because it allows them to look up, away from music stands kind of buried, and they can look more out into the congregation and those words help. But if those words are coming earlier or late, not only is the leader thrown off.
BK: Yes.
DZ: But the whole congregation’s thrown off then. And it just becomes silly. We’ve all been there.
BK: Yeah. We have, and we don’t always realize how important that is. Like if your responsibility as projectionist is to enable people to sing these words, meaningfully, in an engaged way.
DZ: A non-distracted.
BK: Non-distracted way for those words to come up late. It just disrupts the flow of thought every single time. So what we’ve encouraged projectionists to do is last two syllables before that word ends, or the last screen go on to the next screen.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And I’d encourage projectionists to even risk being wrong than being late. It’s okay. It’s, projectionist is like sound people in general, you only notice them when things go wrong. [laughter] It’s like, rarely do people come up and say, “Man, you did a great job today. None of the lyrics were late.” But if one’s late or if they’re repeated late. Oh, yeah. You’ll hear about it. In being clear, it’s helpful for the projectionists to be able to hear the leader and to know what’s going on, to follow the leader. So we tend to, in rehearsal, if someone says, “Are we gonna do it that way?” I’ll say, “Well, maybe” Sometimes we’ll say, “Yeah, we’re gonna do it that way.” But be ready for the leader to take it somewhere else. So that’s the first thing. Anything you wanna say about that?
DZ: No, that’s wonderful. Yeah.
BK: Pursue clarity, not confusion. So that’s just some ways you can make it clear. Pursue comprehension, not distraction.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So if we’re gonna use lyric projection to enable people to see and to understand and sing truth-filled lyrics together in an undistracting, engaging faith-filled ways. We wanna think about images very carefully. And this is, I mean, this is, there’s been a lot of discussion about this. And after the conference, I had people push back. “I don’t think you allowed enough room for this.” And so I would allow room for it. Images are not evil. They’re not sinful, you have still images, you have moving images, this is not a moral issue. This is a wisdom issue, but I do think that many churches receive emails from certain media companies and they just assume, oh, we should use this. And you can use a still graphic image behind lyrics to say something? It’s, whether it’s a series you’re going through, or maybe just looks better whatever, but that’s not distracting.
BK: That is saying something. But it’s not distracting. But here’s a good question to ask. What is this image still, or moving, adding or supporting? How is it supporting theologically driven Christ exalting lyrics, emotionally engaging music and clear pastoral leadership? What’s it doing to add to that? And I don’t know. I’ve never seen a moving image behind lyrics that have made me think, oh, this helps me really get it. And we will talk more about that. But if you do, I’ve seen instructions, places where people are trying to train you how to create just the right image. Well, lyrics to songs are changing all the time. And they mean different things. So you have to find just the right image to, to say this and this, and it just becomes exhausting.
BK: And it the point becomes then, oh, I just have to find the right image. Well, do those words need that image? Will that image make those words better? So those are questions we just need to ask. Another aspect of comprehension is just how many lines you include on a, I don’t know what you call it, a slide, the screen.
DZ: Yes. Uhhuh.
BK: You know how a popular thing has become, if people are using an IMAG to, you have the band up there, which also can be very distracting. [laughter] You see how someone looks and… I mean, they’re right there in front of you, but looking up at the screen. But because of that, they only have one line underneath. One website I read said, the major problem with over-stuffing lyrics on your worship backgrounds is that it makes it harder to read and follow along, and easier to get lost. Try to keep it to two, maybe three lines. And that’s pretty popular. Have you seen that?
DZ: Yeah. Well, going back to the, if you’re projecting an image or you’re showing the band or the leader that limits you with that one line. And so…
BK: Yes. Yes. You don’t wanna cover the leader’s face, of the lyrics.
DZ: Right. Yeah. [laughter] I was about to tell a funny story.
BK: Tell it. It’s our podcast, we can do whatever we want.
DZ: Well, I was at a conference one time, and instead of, they were showing the band’s face, the leader’s face, but then there were cameras in the room that were showing congregation members singing.
BK: Oh man. Oh man.
DZ: And I remember looking up, and people would just be kind of lost in the moment. Their eyes are closed, and then they look up and they see themselves on the big screen. [laughter] And it almost became like a kiss cam moment where it’s like, me, look, we’re here. [laughter] And I thought, ya know what? I don’t know if that is.
BK: Probably not.
DZ: I don’t know if that’s helping. [laughter] So maybe you wanna tell that story.
BK: That’s great.
DZ: But, going back to the one line, I’m sure you’re going to say this point later, but how cohesive that, just those five words are as opposed to maybe three lines or four lines.
BK: Yes. Yes. Yeah. It doesn’t, I mean, sometimes two lines is all you need, but when there’s a verse, I mean, songwriters work really hard, hopefully. We do, I know [laughter] and others to connect the thoughts in the verses or in the chorus, whatever. We like to see, I like to know how those thoughts connect. Why is this line following that line? When they’re all given to us one at a time? It’s just a lot harder to see. It’s a lot harder to make that connection. You have to do more work to, to make those connections.
DZ: Well that’s a fascinating topic. And not to stall you, but the, it’s a fascinating topic to think through how we saw Hymnity. In the verses all in front of us and following them. That looked like one connected thought. But I wonder in contemporary Christian music, if there aren’t cohesive thoughts within four lines.
BK: Well, that brings up a whole ‘nother podcast, [laughter]
DZ: That’s what I was thinking. [laughter]
BK: Yeah. A lot of songs aren’t written that way.
DZ: One thought, one thought, one thought just like that, versus that are not actually connected. It’s interesting.
BK: Yeah. Author named Nick Page wrote a book, I can’t remember the name of it at the moment. But he calls it fridge magnet Poetry.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Where you just have lines that you can switch out and just kind of… There’s no real connection to each other. And yeah. You can put those up one at a time. Doesn’t really matter. But we want the word of Christ to dwell in people richly not shallowly… So that means understanding how things connect… So use as much of the lyric put as much of the lyric up there as makes the thought complete. Gives people the complete thought. And then another aspect of comprehension is punctuation… Again, there’s no absolute rules here.
BK: But we want to use punctuation to make things clear, to help people understand the meaning of what’s up there. So while we don’t need to follow strict punctuation rules and pick punctuation can be distracting… But there are times when you use quotes to differentiate between what God is saying versus what we’re singing to him. Things might need a comma in the lines. You might wanna put an, exclamation point at a certain place. But just think, ask the question, “how will this serve people?” Not just, I have to do it this way. I’ll never do it that way. But how does it serve people? We try to use minimal punctuation, but what serves people? What, just what I said. What will help people understand it. And then another aspect of comprehension is capitalization.
BK: Some people use all caps, which is fine. You can do that. It can feel impersonal, just like or loud even. If you’re not using all caps, capitalizing the names of God can be helpful. To distinguish between us and the Lord, and remember who it is we’re singing to. As far as lines, you try to put line breaks in an obvious spot. I know, I’m sure you’ve had this experience where you’re reading, seeing a line, and the first two words of the next line come at the end of that previous line and then you’re back to the next line and just kind.
DZ: So you mean like “before the throne of God above I have”…
BK: Yes yes.
DZ: “A strong and perfect plea”
BK: Yes. Agreed.
DZ: You thought, am I having a stroke? [laughter]
BK: And then comprehension. Check your spelling twice.
DZ: A check your spelling.
BK: Three times.
DZ: There are nightmare stories. Just so with spelling.
BK: We’re not gonna go into it.
DZ: We’re not gonna.
BK: So yeah, you’re not going for an experience. You are going for comprehension… And then pursue engagement, not entertainment. One website I went to said, we never wanna be so crazy that we distract or lose readability. We just want to add that edge of newness… To relieve the stagnancy that can so easily creep into churches. When I read that I thought, maybe before we try to relieve the stagnancy, it’s a good idea to ask why that stagnancy is there. Like, what’s making your, making your meeting stagnant? Is it a plain lyric projection?
DZ: Right.
BK: Is that what you’re depending on to bring life and and enthusiasm to your meeting? Like what’s on the screen. Is because the lyrics look the same every week? Or is it because we’re so used to constantly being entertained and want more of it when we gather with a church? I think that’s more the reason. And we need to ask those questions. Recently received an email again from a company, “do you ever feel like your worship services aren’t exciting as they used to be? Maybe your congregation isn’t participating as much as they should, or that people have checked out during worship the solution.” And I am on the edge of my seat. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be this way. I know you’re already working hard to bring your best music for your time of worship, but there’s another area that you may have overlooked.”
DZ: Dun dun dun.
[laughter]
BK: “Your visuals, that’s where we can help. Here’s an easy tip that will bring your life, bring life to your services. It’s so simple. You’re gonna want to try it this Sunday,” here it is. “Keep your screen visuals changing frequently.”
DZ: Oh my goodness. I didn’t even know.
BK: Well, now you do.
DZ: Wow.
BK: There’s so many problems with that, it’s saying that people want change. They want change, they want newness in the image, the visual. So we’re gonna give it to them.
DZ: Yeah. We’re gonna be bored. If we’re just looking at lyrics. If we’re just looking at words with nothing.
BK: Yes.
DZ: We’re gonna be bored. Is the is the assumption. Well, and I mean, you it you can dive into just our how distracted we are in daily life, but why does that bleed over into the church?
BK: Yeah. It’s exactly where we’re going. And I got another email about countdown timer, that’s the solution for your service. And countdown timers aren’t wrong, we play one or two minutes of music instrumentally that alerts the church they’ll come down. So you can say, well, that’s just like a countdown timer. Yeah. Not quite. But because it’s not visual, it’s audio, it’s oral. But we are saying, hey, the meeting’s about to start anyway. Pursue, comprehend, we pursue, what did I say? Pursue engagement, not entertainment… Here’s the third point. We don’t always know why we use it. We don’t always know how to use projection. Third, we don’t always know the dangers of using it. And you were walking into, you’re getting into it. Visual projection can be a sign that we as the church are capitulating to the spirit of the age and the values of our culture.
BK: In our daily lives. We are constantly looking at screens… Every Sunday during rehearsal, I will get a buzz on my phone and most of my notifications are turned off. But this somehow gets to me, I think, ’cause I’m wearing my watch when I, when I’m leading. And it’s just telling me how much screen time per day I spent [laughter] And, it’s a little shocking. I don’t know if I wanna share it on the podcast. [laughter], two hours, three hours. It’s like, oh my gosh. Where’s what if I’m doing well, I think I’m on the low side, how much time do we spend? Well, when you add in, phones, tablets, movies, computers, televisions, it’s like hours and hours and hours. We are bombarded with screens and the images on them. And so we become used to being distracted and shutting it out.
BK: As you go through social media, if you’re on social media, all the ads that come up. If you’re on a website, all the ads that come up, you just have to tune them out, which means we’re teaching people not even to focus on what’s right in front of them. And only to be stimulated and affected by what’s visually exciting or visually new. And is excellent book “Competing Spectacles” Tony Reinke defines a spectacle as, “Something that captures human attention in an instant when our eyes and brains focus and fixate on something projected at us.”
BK: So think about this. This is happening on Sunday mornings when we are throwing images at people, the world is trying to capture and captivate us with projected images. Think memes, gifs, I ever say that word. Viral videos news clips, Instagram stories, TikTok. It’s just one image after another. And when one website tells us the whole purpose of backgrounds, loops, or still graphics is to add visual interest to the screens and to break up the monotony of plain black behind the lyrics, that says more about how we’ve been trained by our culture than any lack in the words we’re singing. ‘Cause the words, if we’re singing good solid songs, the words aren’t lacking. They don’t need something better. When the world seeks to seduce us and control us by a constant barrage of images on a screen, that’s what the world’s doing.
BK: God wants us to captivate us with his word. Both written and in the flesh. He wants us to see Jesus, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, how does he do that? It’s not through images. I think when Paul says, to the Galatians, this is Galatians 3:1, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” He’s not talking about them being at the crucifixion. He’s not talking about showing them a picture of Jesus on the cross. He’s talking about preaching. And then when he writes to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord,” beholding the glory of the Lord, “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” He’s not talking about an artist, painting a picture of the glory of the Lord. He’s talking about the Spirit, removing the veil from our hearts so that we can understand God’s word.
DZ: It’s amazing.
BK: And so, what’s that?
DZ: It’s amazing.
BK: It is amazing. So if we’re to focus on anything when we gather, we don’t want it to be the screen. We don’t, we don’t even want it to be a hymnal. We don’t want it to be the platform. We don’t want it to be the lighting or the podium or the instruments or the musicians.
BK: We wanna be focusing on the word of God in Christ. One place we do that is in each other. Seeing each other. This is the body of Christ. This is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Where God is building up a place where he dwells by his Spirit. That’s the privilege of gathering together. So the end of this conversation would be, don’t be thinking how can we make our screens better, but how can we make what God has given us better? How can we make the preached word better? How can we make these words better? How can we make the interaction of God’s people better, and be asking the question, not what can we use, but what should we use? What are we missing that Christ exalting, theologically driven, emotionally engaging melodies and arrangements and words and clear pastoral leadership don’t provide? What is it that we’re missing? Well, that’s a better question than, ya know can we use this? ‘Cause the answer is also we sure you can, but that’s not the right question. So I hope this conversation has maybe caused you to ask some questions.
[laughter]
DZ: I think that’s good.
BK: And, if you’re in your church, what would you say, David? If you’re in your church and you’re finding, like this is the kind of rejection you get what would you say to someone? Because I imagine most people listening aren’t projectionists.
DZ: Yeah. Someone who’s in the congregation observing this or a projectionist. Congregation observing it. I would find a way to get back.
BK: Stand up in the middle of the meeting.
[laughter]
DZ: Stop, stop, stop. I would find a way to get back to the main thing. I would encourage you to talk to your worship leader or your projectionist or your pastor. Thinking through this. Like, I just, I think we can’t jump past the point that you made, that we dragged the world into our.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Church.
BK: Yes. Yes. That’s not what we’re seeking to do.
DZ: And that’s not what we’re seeking to do. We wanna be radically different than the world. And, the thing that’s radical is God’s word. It’ll always be.
BK: Yes. The gospel’s radical. It’s the power of God. Absolutely.
DZ: Yeah. It’s boring. The gospel is boring to an unregenerate heart.
BK: Yes yes.
DZ: It will always be. It’s a stumbling block, right?
BK: Yes.
DZ: Or it’s foolishness. It’s ridiculous. But for those of us who are in Christ, who love him and love his word, it’s gold.
BK: It’s amazing.
DZ: It’s treasure. So we treasure it. And one way to treasure something is to remove all the distractions. It’s like, you don’t set a diamond in laundry.
[laughter]
DZ: You set it against like a black backdrop that’s gonna make it shine. And it’s almost a, it’s almost a one for one. We, not that you just have to use, a black, image, background, but it is sort of a one for one of like, these are the most important things. The word of God is the diamond that’s shining out of this.
BK: Yes. Amen.
DZ: All for the glory of Christ.
BK: Well said. And maybe you can ask your, one of your leaders to say, Hey, these guys did this podcast, and…
DZ: You should check it out.
BK: I think we learned better. [laughter] always. Or subscribe or what should we say? Anyway, follow us. [laughter]
BK: Thanks for joining us. Look forward to the next time.
DZ: Thanks.
