Published: April 07, 2008 04:28 pm            

Impact worship

Church uses technology to enhance the spiritual message

Audio/visual productions are nothing new in church. In recent years, the use of projector screens and light shows have become a way for churches to get their members more involved with the service. Oakwood Christian Church in Enid is one of those churches that uses technology, movies and popular culture to convey the message of Jesus Christ.

The program Oakwood Christian uses for their projection screens is called Easy Worship. Easy Worship offers a vast array of options for churches to use, including dual monitor display for distraction-free worship and events, PowerPoint presentation, overlay text on captured feeds — like DVD and camera pictures — sound controls and looping, remote navigation and copy, cut and paste features through Windows.

Derek Levins, Youth Pastor at Oakwood Christian Church, said the use of the video presentation allows the church a freedom that most other churches don’t have.

“The Easy Worship program is really pretty inexpensive. We use it every day,” Levins said. “We use the PowerPoint for slides presentations that run continually before our service. We use videos for a three-minute countdown to let people know in three-minutes we are going to start our service. We don’t use paper handouts like a lot of other churches.”

Levins said the church also uses another program called CCLI — Christian Copyright Licensing International. The church has a contract with the company which allows them to use any of the music that is on the CCLI’s program. Levins said they can get chord charts, sheet music and song lyrics.

The church uses the technology to videotape almost every sermon, but they are not able to broadcast the sermons yet, Levins said.

“Eventually our goal is to get them on our Web site,” Levins said. “We want to stream on our Web site for people who can’t be here.”

All of the sermons preached during the church’s Sunday services are on the Web site already in print form. Levins said the site has been a real blessing in terms of reaching the community.

“This is one of the best tools we have to communicate to the community and our congregation,” Levins said. “It talks about our preschool academy, adult ministry, children’s ministry and our current series we are preaching right now.”

One intriguing aspect of Oakwood Christian’s services is their use of popular culture. Levins said a few weeks ago he used a scene from the movie “Braveheart.”

“It was at the very end when he was being killed,” Levins said. “The sermon was from Galatians, Chapter Five. Galatians Chapter Five, Verse One said it was for freedom that Christ set us free — that we no longer have to be a slave to sin. We can be a slave to righteousness. We talked about how true freedom is only found in death.”

Levins said he used the death of William Wallace for Scotland’s freedom as a metaphor of Jesus’ death on the cross for our freedom.

“We showed that video clip at the beginning of the service to catch the eye of the people, and let them know what we were talking about,” Levins said.

Levins has used other movie clips in his sermons. Every clip pertains to the discussion of the day’s sermon. He gave another example of a sermon where he used a clip from the movie “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton,” because the sermon was about dating.

The church has several services, a 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday morning, and once a month they have a service called Fusion, which Levins says is a little more contemporary and edgy.

Levins said the church decides on topics or themes to go with periodically throughout the year. Recently, the theme is impact. The idea is to try and determine how the congregation can best impact the community.

Topics during recent Sunday evening services revolve around “untouchable” subjects.

“It is the four subjects that we don’t talk about in church -- homosexuality, death and dying, prejudice and disabilities,” Levins said. “Those are the four things we are going to talk about in the next four months. It’s the things you don’t normally think about talking about in church. We’re going to talk about them because it’s important that we know what God’s word says.”

The edgy subject matter of some of the church’s sermons is befitting their style. With the use of movies, music, and minor spectacle, Oakwood Christian has attracted quite a following of believers in what the church believes and presents. In turn, they have created a greater following for Christ’s word.

“God’s word is true,” Levins said. “He says we should hate the sin and love the people who have sinned. God’s word says our goal in life is to reach all people no matter where they are.”