Many SDA churches these days use projectors to show song lyrics on a large screen up at the front of the sanctuary during church services; as opposed to the time-honored practice of singing out of the church hymnal.

Is using projectors in this fashion a good use of technology? Why or why not?

We use both at church. During Praise time we have a projector, or something that is projecting the lyrics to the screen (could be laptop with powerpoint i forgot).
Then sometime during our worship service we use the hymnals, but I do know for a fact that we use both during our services.

I know that the songs projected on screen are not in the hymnals, so thats why Ifigure we use the projector.

God Bless,
Will

I think there's nothing wrong with the technology, but the quality of the songs being projected can be a factor.

In the "good old days" songs were sung by "memory" then they brought in "printed BOOKS"
-I wonder what the members thought when someone said "hey lets turn to page 384 to sing" , that would have been interesting, don't you think?

At the MOncton, SDA Church, I am the SALT director, that is the Sound and Light Team leader. Cool title because there are only 2 of us that run the sound booth.
-Tom you make a great point there. Quality of presentation is VERY Important. We use a permanently mounted ceiling projector on a high quality screen, with power point or other program sending the signal through the computer.
-I find that by presenting the songs in this format, we are able to have the lights lowered and this lends to a more meditative atmosphere for worship.

Many of our lyrics from the Hymnal, etc. are up on the two big screens. There are not enough hymnals to go around for everyone and it makes it very helpful to put the words up on the screen. It is not the technology that is bad it is the people behind the technology that would use it in a wrong way. Not all new technology is bad.