Backstory: Church of the higher tech

The Rev. Mike Laird is standing in front of his congregation, admonishing them about patience. Not patience as a generic virtue. But patience with him.

It's a summer Sunday morning, and many of the high-tech gadgets that give the North Shore Chapel its up-to-date identity aren't working. The clip from "The Matrix" won't play. The Bible verses displayed on a big screen aren't the ones he wants. The soundtrack to a slide show of kids doing arts and crafts cuts off abruptly.

It doesn't help that the service is being held in a rented discount movie theater, creating perhaps a heightened expectation for special effects, especially when God is involved. But the church's volunteer technology expert is unexpectedly absent: His wife is giving birth. "Today, I'm taking a mulligan," Mr. Laird says, plaintively.

Balky equipment aside, a growing number of churches are joining the movement toward a digitized ministry. From experimental congregations to mainline denominations, they are using jumbo screens, websites, sophisticated videos – everything but God thundering out of a cloud – to attact worshipers and relate to people in the language of today.

Critics rue the potential of bells and Whistler-like video images to distract from the deeper meaning of church. But as the techno-worship trend matures, users say it's serving a profound purpose: turning sideline sitters into active church participants, cultivating compassion, and making it easier for the taciturn to tell inspiring stories.

Technology is becoming more pervasive. Between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of Protestant churches using large-screen projection systems jumped from 39 to 62, according to The Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif.-based church research firm. More than half now also have websites, send out mass e-mail blasts, and incorporate video into services. Stoic Congregationalists at times use film clips to illustrate a spiritual point. Pentecostals use giant monitors to show fellow worshipers sweating, waving arms, or collapsing because they've been "slain in the Spirit."

North Shore Chapel member Julie Gil knows the merits of techno-religion. She became a Christian about six years ago while reading Tim LaHaye's bestselling novel, "Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days," closely identifying with a career-focused character who has a conversion. Still, few knew how she came to trust God because she feared public speaking. Then a church member videotaped her during a small group discussion and produced a five-minute version for Sunday worship. "Although I knew I was being videotaped, I didn't really think about the camera," Ms. Gil says. "So it was just like talking to a friend."

In some cases, video seems to elicit as much compassion as a sermon. In Kansas, for instance, a pastor recently brought a teenage church member to a nursing home, where he videotaped her interviewing a church elder who hadn't been to a service in 10 years. The congregation watched a three-minute clip and later inundated her with birthday cards. "She was kind of teary-eyed about how much she missed church," says John Jewell Jr., assistant professor of ministry and technology at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa.

Still, not everyone is enamored with the trend toward digital worship. Technology can feed an idolatrous tendency in America, one that says everything from education to energy has a technological solution, according to Quentin Schultze, a professor of communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and author of "High-Tech Worship? Using Presentation Technologies Wisely." "Our overly optimistic attitude toward using presentational technologies in worship reveals the quick-fix mentality of our times," Mr. Schultze writes in his book.

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