Among a plethora of creative possibilities for creating visual impact on the screens in the worship space, here are six effective ideas for reinforcing worship and the message:

1. Text reinforcement
When a significant point is being presented, reinforce it with text!

Some people make some of the text fill-in-the-blank style and reveal the missing text as the point is discussed.

Another creative way to reinforce text is to tie in an electronic whiteboard that takes what is written or drawn in real time and projects it up on the screen. In this way, the teaching pastor can use the white board interactively for even more retention-building power.

2. Graphical reinforcement
A picture is worth a thousand words. There's no denying that the right image can evoke the appropriate response or, at the least, create an opportunity to connect with your audience.

When the pastor is teaching a sermon series on raising kids, images of children - both behaving and misbehaving - can reinforce the message in such a powerful way. It would take a lot more words to describe what a simple picture can say in a mere moment.

And no matter how many times you have heard about the camel going through the eye of a needle in Matthew 19:24, showing that crazy correlation graphically can reinforce that passage more clearly and memorably.

3. Pre-recorded video reinforcement
Easily one of the most memorable uses of the electronic canvas is video roll-ins.

I remember when my pastor did the sermon series "Just Lust." The room darkened just before the message and we were hit with harsh sound effects and very quick images of signs, billboards and pictures of the front of local topless bars. Brief snapshots (I'm talking a frame or two of video) of each of these was interspersed with pictures of the faces of many of these establishments' women, and it was all set to the syncopation of the fast-changing music/sound effects bed, which all ended abruptly with only the sound of a low frequency hum fading away while a heartbeat was all that could be heard.

This moment was powerful and set up the sermon with a raw authenticity that had us paying full attention to the pastor as he began his message.

4. Emotive Response
Every time I hear the song "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" by Sting, I'm instantly drawn back to the powerful music video my church did a couple of years ago.

Shot on location in a small, traditional looking church, the action depicted the singer in the church, unnoticed (hey, it's a music video) by the people that walk in, sit, kneel or pray. The range of emotions on the peoples' faces varied and reflected, at times, the lyrics of the song.

Simple effects, such as video that is black and white except for the stained glass windows and the lock-down camera shots allowing for the singer to appear and fade away at various spots in the pews make it visually interesting. At the end, we're prepared mentally to tune in on the subject of doubt and fear in a way not easily replicated through the mere spoken word.

Sometimes the electronic canvas is really a true physical canvas. I remember another sermon series where my pastor painted a picture while he taught. In this instance, live video was a great asset -- showing the painting in progress so all could easily see.

I've also used the screens without any projection, but instead lit to create a whole new dimension. I will often ask the architect and lighting designer to place a couple of lighting circuits in rear projection rooms so that lights can be used to wash the screen, add gobos or change the color wash. In one instance, we had actors step off stage and continue their dialog - in this instance an argument - behind the screen, which was lit from behind with a light, silhouetting the actors.

As an aside, let me point out that there are a few ways to make this work better than just text over digitized nature footage. The first is to create text with a heavy outline and translucent, soft-edged drop shadow so that it pops over the video. Another (usually easier to read) way is to render the nature footage in your NLE with a very slight amount of blur. This will still allow the images to be seen for what they are, but causes the sharper text to really stand out. A third option is to use two side screens for the song lyrics and another center screen(s) for displaying the nature footage.

6. Metaphor Reinforcement
Jason Moore and Len Wilson have written and taught extensively about using metaphors in worship in their books, "The Wired Church" and "Digital Storytellers."

The electronic canvas can illustrate, support and even carry a metaphor through a service.

In a series at my church called Ignite, the entire stage was filled with images from projectors and plasma screens. The content was up to four different sources, each with an element that tied into the fire metaphor. Some had looping video of flames over a black background. Others had rings of fire while a large center screen kept the fire burning with the 3D text "Ignite" literally on fire (smoking and all). Another more subtle effect was the barely audible sound of a large fire burning that was present as an auditory reminder.

With the availability of PowerPoint, Easy Worship, Media Shout, Sunday Plus, Worship Builder, Song Show Plus, Keynote 2 - the list goes on - there's no reason to not be using software to create or modify the kind of content described above. Furthermore, with free image editing software such as Google's Picasa 2, there's not a valid reason for churches to not take the time to find creative ways of digitally painting on the electronic canvas.