Where, O where did the hymnals go?  The once constant bastion of the pew, the loyal book that would meet you wherever you happened to be worshiping on a given Sunday, has left the building.  When I was a teenager and hymnals began to collect dust as overhead projectors took over I welcomed it as an opportunity to get with the times.  Computers were taking over the world, and I had heard of AOL and the Internet---the world seemed like it was ready to ditch the book and go electronic.

The whole church followed.  This is not just an American, or Western, or even developed world phenomenon.  When I was in Brazil and Canada on missions trips, they used projectors for their worship as well.  Projectors make things easy, simple, any one can follow them.  All that's missing is a bouncing ball.

Yet I am no longer a fan of projectors.  I want to get rid of them.  I want hymnals or books or pamphlets---even sheet music!---just no more projectors.  I used to generally agree with the whole argument that disparaged contemporary worship songs as individualistic and fluffy, about as nourishing as a twinkie.  I still agree with that argument when it comes to certain contemporary songs, but for the most part I think that blaming the song, or the band, or the words is not going far enough.  Blame the whole presentation.  Blame the projector.

The projector has killed off the integrity of a song by not allowing it to be sung in its entirety.  Sure, when we worship we sing the song for four minutes, but we don't see the whole song, we don't sing the whole song---we just go along with the parts that are displayed on the screen hanging high above our heads.  The only people that know a song, from beginning to end, who see how the first verse matches the fourth verse, how the chorus is a foreshadow of the bridge, how the theology of redemption is displayed in the third verse, or how there are parallels in the language of the song are the worship band and music director---all these things are missed when the words are projected to the congregation in three or four line increments.  Not even whole verses are displayed.

Projectors fragment the worship experience.  They break it into nice chunks that are easier to swallow.  But I fear all we are swallowing is air. 

Hymnals, bulletin inserts, song books---these all provide substance and a song in its entirety.  One can open up a hymnal and see every word, how the meaning of the song is found in its words as a whole, and not in snippets of phrases beamed onto a white screen.

Technology is a great asset in our world---it enables churches to spend money in other areas and provides opportunities for greater community and organization.  But it also can fragment and cheapen the world we live and worship in.   And I feel that projectors contribute to this problem.

Our phone numbers and addresses are important, that's why they are put into directories and not splattered all over the Internet.  We should treat our sacred songs the same way.  They are too important to be cheapened, broken into pieces, treated as crumbs and not as morsels.  Our songs need to be read in full, interpreted in full, and sung in full.