Cardboard Testimonies in Chapel (11-21-08)

Last Friday I had the privilege of preaching in our chapel service at SLCC. Although I have the opportunity to teach students in class several times a week, there is something special about preaching in chapel. If you’re faculty, you usually only get to do it once a year. We also have special guests come in frequently.

Chapel usually consists of several songs led by a worship team, announcements and offering, and a sermon – though not necessarily in that order. For my chapel, I wanted to do something different. My church had done “cardboard testimonies” a couple of months ago, and I had seen other churches do it as well. It’s a very powerful display of God’s work in a person’s life. If you don’t know what “cardboard testimonies” are, check out a previous post from a few weeks back, or just get on YouTube and type in the phrase.

I want to look at the service from a couple of different viewpoints.

Production

“Production” seems to be a dirty word in worship circles these days because of its connotations to big programs, television and entertainment. But “production” is nothing more than organizing a service so that it flows smoothly. Every church service is “produced” on some level, even if it’s just a person leading hymns with an organ and someone preaching. If it’s organized, it is produced.

The order of service went like this:

- Worship song: My Glorious

- Announcements, offering, introduction of speaker

- Message (and a transition into the testimonies)

- Cardboard testimonies (the music behind the testimonies was “Grace Like Rain”).

- Worship songs: God of This City, Mighty to Save, How Great is Our God. During the songs people were invited to come forward to write their own “cardboard testimony.”

- Closing thoughts, and closing prayer

Although you can’t tell from this order of service, this was a very powerful time of worship and sharing. Let me share with you some of my thoughts on the service from a production standpoint, what went into creating the service.

When I first found out I was preaching the Friday before Thanksgiving break, I was a little disappointed since some students would have already left for the break.  Another group would be gone to the National Missionary Convention. Attendance would be down, but rather than being a disappointment, I wanted to do something to tie into Thanksgiving. Not the typical “Thanksgiving” message or service, but to do something unforgettable that would give us a reason to give thanks. What better way to remember God’s goodness together than cardboard testimonies of how he’s worked in our lives?

A couple of weeks before the service I asked a student to begin organizing who would be involved in the testimonies. When you attend a service, sometimes it’s easy to forget that all the details have to be thought out and organized ahead of time. It would take a lot of work communicating with people, choosing the right people to be involved, getting the supplies, the technical elements, etc. The student recruited about 25 other people to present a cardboard testimony. I also asked a few staff and faculty to be involved. (I did this intentionally because when staff and faculty participate, it lends a nice level of credibility and community.) The student helped everyone work on the text for their cardboard and the logistics of how they would line up before chapel. With the help of another student, they also had to physically go and get cardboard. All of this takes a lot of time and energy.

Let’s talk about the music for a moment. I asked one of our worship and music majors to put together a team, and he did a fantastic job recruiting others for the band and following through on what I wanted in the service. I did an unusual thing and asked for specific songs, and he was very gracious in following my suggestions. I was really glad that he involved some students who haven’t had the opportunity to lead worship in chapel this year.

I wanted to have the worship songs after the message, and after the testimonies because I wanted a time for us to respond to what was happening. I knew the testimonies would be powerful, and it would have killed the spirit of unity and worship had we ended the service right there. The testimonies called for a response of some kind, and it was the right decision to have the bulk of worship songs near the end rather than the beginning. (I think we ought to consider this arrangement more often in our worship.) I asked for an upbeat song at the beginning to help us gather into worship before the announcements, offering and introduction of the speaker (me!). One of our other faculty handled those responsibilities nicely.

Music is an absolutely critical element to setting the right mood and tone for a service. I asked for those specific songs because our students would respond to them well; plus they are great worship songs! The worship leader set just the right tone musically and emotionally. Don’t overlook the attention you need to give to song selection, and the right placement of those songs to facilitate the flow of the service, and how it helps people respond more effectively. It’s not just about eliminating distractions, but being pro-active about leading people to a place you and the team have thought about and prayed about.

What about the technical elements? One of my roles at the college is to oversee the musical and technical elements of chapel, so those are my “babies.” I have a great group of students this semester who have gone above and beyond in serving in the tech area. The tech area is absolutely critical to a smoothly flowing service. We had some “challenges” in this service, including: a wireless mic whose receiver was somehow set on the wrong channel (and we couldn’t figure out how to re-set it in time), the worship team’s sound system turned on and off a couple of times for no apparent reason, and the video camera we were using for IMAG (image magnification) of the cardboard pieces refused to play nice with our video switcher. All of these were frustrating but did not at all hamper the mood of the service. None of these were anyone’s fault in particular; they were just things that went wrong at the last minute.

Things like that happen in every church (and in probably almost every service), but you have to deal with problems on the fly as best as you can. The solution is be as prepared as possible, but also as flexible as possible. It’s a challenging thing at our school because we have students who are constantly rotating in and out of the chapel tech team (we usually change teams once a year). This means I am constantly re-training students – which is our job, of course! – but it does present a challenge in being truly prepared for chapel when we’re dealing with students’ schedules, and a Chapel service twice a week.

Also, don’t forget about lighting, a technical element that is often overlooked. Lighting has an incredible effect on the mood or tone of a service. For this chapel, we had some simple stage lighting to help place the focus up front, and we adjusted the lighting in the back of the chapel to make it slightly darker.

Ironically, sometimes too much preparation and having things be technically perfect can actually be a turn-off for people. It can appear too “slick” and “over-produced.” This is especially a turn-off for Gen-Xers and Millennials, who are very wary of worship that looks like entertainment. In our particular case for this chapel, our tech problems did not seem to have any effect on the emotional impact of the service. It probably lent to the authenticity of the service.

I should point out also that our tech crew, despite a few extra challenges, really did a nice job with this service.

Let’s talk about the cardboard testimonies themselves. It is imperative that people don’t write too much on their cardboard. It’s very tempting to put more than you need, but you must really think it through and boil it down to just a few words. When people come up, they need to hold it high enough, and long enough, so that people can read it well. It’s better to hold it a little too long than a little too short. Also, the pieces themselves need to be a good size – anything less than 3 feet on either side may be too small, but it depends on the setting and whether it will be magnified on a screen.

I think it’s important that the cardboard pieces don’t look too pristine. For goodness’ sake, don’t use white posterboard or perfect cardboard pieces! The cardboard itself should be a reflection on our imperfect lives. I made the pieces for myself, my brother and Dad, and I literally dug boxes out of my basement and cut them up. There were some dead spiders and cobwebs on them, but I thought that was somehow a good metaphor for our lives before they are changed by God’s grace!

We had an interesting thing happen during the worship songs at the end. We had a bunch of pieces of smaller cardboard up front, along with a bunch of markers. I invited people to come up and write their own “cardboard testimony” – a prayer of petition or thanksgiving to God for what he has done, or what he will do. This was to happen during the worship songs, and I thought it would be a neat element where people could respond and participate in a unique way. Somehow I didn’t communicate this very well, and a number of people came up, wrote their own cardboard testimony, and then got up on stage and showed it while we were singing. People spontaneously applauded when someone did this, as a sign of encouragement for what God had done in their lives. It was very powerful and moving, but it wasn’t we had planned to happen…it was even better! Then during that time, a student who was visibly moved asked if he could close in prayer, and I could see it would be a great thing, so he did.

Community

Sorry the reflections above were a little long. I’ll keep this one shorter. Essentially, the value of this service was that it gave us a way to come together in worship – students, faculty, staff and anyone else present. Worship is often a spectator sport where people sit and passively receive what it given to them. They sing during the songs, of course, but is this the only way they should be engaged? I don’t think so.

I would like to see more student participation in chapel, whatever form that may take. I don’t have all the answers or ideas, but I knew the cardboard testimonies could be powerful if done in the right way. In our context, I knew that meant getting a bunch of people involved and not worry about whether it was done perfectly. What would be memorable was the people getting up front and sharing the brutal truth about who they were, and the marvelous story of what God had done…all in just a few words on an old piece of cardboard. It was real, authentic and participatory – and that’s what made all the difference.

The most powerful part for me was getting up front with my brother and Dad – both of whom graciously agreed to take time out from their schedules to be at chapel. The order of these pieces is me, my brother, then my Dad (I saved the pieces):

Then the flip sides…

Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to dive into the logistics of this special chapel service. I would highly recommend doing cardboard testimonies as a creative way to open up people’s hearts to what God is doing in the lives of others all around them.