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John Piper’s article on whether churches should use video and drama during worship has stirred up a small controversy. As I see it, Pastor Piper is not anti-media; he’s just expressing a concern. We’ll examine it.

In the past, concerns about how worship is conducted – style of music, type of preaching – got out of hand. Positions took on the weight of “law.” Individuals left congregations and churches split.

Hopefully, the rapid rise of media and technology in the church doesn’t lead to that.

Some controversies grow out of misinterpretations; reading more into what a person said than what they intended. And then those thoughts get repeated, distorted some more, and on it goes. I’ve seen that occur in the comment threads behind posts on this very subject of what John Piper said about media in the church.

About 6-8 comments down in some of these blogs questioning his position on media, I found myself wondering how a man of John Piper’s education and intellect could say such ridiculous things. I would go back and re-read what he actually said, and the truth was … he didn’t convey anything close to the ideas the commenter was attributing to him.

So, to nip that in the bud for our purposes, let’s examine what John Piper “said” and “didn’t say,” taken straight from his article about using media in the church.

John Piper: In his own words about media in the church

He didn’t say it was in violation of Scripture. He said “the Bible doesn’t forbid it.”

He didn’t say everyone should stop using media. He said, “You can do whatever you want to do.”

He didn’t say all use of media was to compensate for weak preaching. He said it’s “largely a token of unbelief in the power of preaching.” (We could quibble about his method of quantification, but if a church doesn’t have weak preaching then the point doesn’t apply.)

He didn’t say the church shouldn’t use drama at all. He said “I went to a drama at our church four days ago. I believe in drama.”

He didn’t say the arts have no place in the church. He said, “Let’s have the arts in our churches, but don’t try to squash it all into Sunday morning.”

In John Piper’s own words, he is not against the use of media by the church, or by his global media ministry, Desiring God, for that matter.

John Piper’s concern

While not anti-media, Piper expresses reservations about its use during worship. His main concern seems to be that “We’ll just go further and further.”  He doesn’t explain what he means in detail, so I’m going to try and interpret. These are my thoughts.

Perhaps he means adding elements that purely entertain or the inclusion of so much technology that IT becomes the focus of worship, not GOD.

It seems to me that “further” might also mean anything during a service that distracts from what Dr. W. Robert Godfrey calls “faithful worship and the unity of the people in their meeting with God.”

To twitter or not to twitter during church is currently being debated. In an article titled Should We Use Twitter During Church, Josh Harris said, “God’s word preached is so important, so precious; I don’t want anything to distract me from hearing it.”

For Bethlehem Baptist Church, John Piper has decided that video clips and drama could be a distraction and so they don’t do it.  However, and this is important … Piper doesn’t pronounce judgment on anyone else for using it or advocate any new laws calling for its prohibition.

Freedom, but…

When it comes to the use of media during worship, John Piper says “freedom.” But out of concern … due perhaps to his respect for media’s power … he also says, “Watch out. Be on guard. Don’t go too far.”

Wise counsel from the Pastor to the Church on anything not strictly prohibited.

Question: If your pastor decided to stop using video and drama during worship, would you change churches?

Note: If the answer is “yes,” you might not want to let your pastor hear that, no matter how effectively the church uses media.

My answer: On matters such as this, our pastors sometimes say, “Methods are many principles few, methods may change, principles never do.” Personally, I believe God has given us the tools of media and technology. We should use them wisely, during worship and elsewhere, with the Bible as our guide. Our church does. But, we could change methods tomorrow and I’m sure that the mission of our church “to connect people with Jesus and one another” would stay in place. We would too.

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Gordon Marcy is a media and communications executive with two decades experience building media platforms for greater Kingdom impact.  He is focused on the intersection of communication technologies and church growth. He can be reached at gordon@gordonmarcy.com.