The Potential of Communal Co-Creation of Liturgical Media Art
Click chart below to see the process. |
In churches small, medium, and large, the use of media art occurs. But whose media art is it?
One model is that the pastor/rector decides on a sermon topic, and then members of the staff or of a small group of volunteers skilled at finding images on the Internet create slide images for projection in that service. The slides typically will illustrate or reinforce whatever is the sermon topic or theme. Other slides may provide lyrics, prayer texts, titles of sections of the service, or announcements. Let’s call this the “staff model.” In large churches with a dedicated media production staff, the creative team and other members of the church’s leadership may jointly come up with a theme for a series of sermons or a liturgical season. The media folks may use media-for-worship materials purchased, adapt those materials, or create their own media art suited to the day’s or the series’s “message.” Volunteers may be welcome to join the production team -- to run the audio board, the video cameras, the projection of images, the lighting -- but they will most likely not be involved in the creative stage. This “production crew model of media ministry” is common. Certainly, in any of these contexts, those involved in the discernment of themes and messages are calling upon the Holy Spirit to be part of the creative process. But those who actually get to participate in the creation of media for worship are relatively few, compared to the number of church members. Worshipers get the benefit of the media art projected within worship, but they do not have any part in its creation. In Communal Co-Creation, the liturgical media art creation process potentially involves a great number of people who -- working together from the lectionary selections for a Sunday or season or inspired by the music or art associated with that Sunday, season, feast, or occasion -- can become involved at multiple points in the process. This process offers a “communal spiritual practice model.” Potential participants may share their insights related to the scripture images and parables and offer whatever connections they make with their lives. They may have a poetic bent and be great at working with metaphors and may suggest images that inspire the artists in the community. They may be artists -- amateur and professional -- who work in various media, such as painting or drawing, graphic design, photography, video, sculpture, mosaic, origami, or calligraphy. They may be grade school teachers, who are often very creative and very gifted in thinking visually. They may be truck drivers, nurses, or accountants who like working with computers and being creative in ways their work otherwise does not permit. They may be craftspeople who love to work with their hands. They may be good organizers, or they may simply be willing souls who enjoy collaborating. After a communal reflection session, or several sessions, participants may go off and work alone or with others to create media art that may have potential for some aspect of the worship under consideration. People -- of all ages-- may be part of the process at the consultation, conception, and creation stages. Others may be involved after a worship service in evaluating how the media art affected the liturgy and the worshipers. But one thing is for sure...at whatever point they may have gotten involved, participants in Communal Co-creation will find themselves more prepared to listen to the scripture and more engaged in the worship service -- because of their participation! Their participation outside of worship increases their participation in worship! Because they have been part of the spiritual practice of Communal Co-Creation, they will more likely come into worship more attuned, with their “poetic capacity” having been enhanced. And, we can hope, they may go out of worship more attentive to the glimpses of grace everywhere in their daily lives. Of course, no liturgy requires the use of media arts. It is an option, one that requires careful discernment as to whether the incorporation of liturgical media art will truly foster the assembly's deeper engagement in internal and external participation. (See quotation below.) |
In the 1963 Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963), the Council Fathers explained in article #14 why internal and external participation in worship is so very, very important:
Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical
celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.
In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered
before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore
pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work.
Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical
celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.
In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered
before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore
pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work.