Visual Content Communicates 80% More Effectively
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
The post title is a modern adaptation of an old adage. Science has confirmed it. A picture is worth a thousand words—more or less.
Images teach. Images reach the soul. Images spark action.
And yet the mission of the church banks on The Word, often reinforced only with music. This comes from a day when there was only one style of music in vogue. Today, musical taste is broad—classical, rock, gospel, folk, new age. People who like one often despise another. Choose the wrong music and The Word will be lost.
Communicating visually was once time-consuming, expensive, and dependent on skills that take years to develop. Early attempts involved carving sarcophagi and painting on walls. Sculpture and stained glass reached their heyday in the Middle Ages. Monks illuminated manuscripts which today are under glass in museums with only two folios visible.
When book publishing and printing became affordable, the Church started using imagery. Sunday School papers and Bible cards proliferated.
When I was a child, an elderly member gave me a shoebox filled with treasured Bible cards from her childhood. They had a biblical image in full color on one side and a message and scripture reference on the back. When I traveled to Germany as an adult, I saw the same images on the walls of a cathedral.
Images stick with you.
Today, it is possible to do a great deal with imagery, The Word can, for the first time, be illustrated as it is being delivered weekly in the sanctuary.
Many churches our Ambassadors visit use projection. Sometimes they flash ads for projects in the church. (Hey, we are in America! Any flat surface is fair game for advertising!). Sometimes the projections include photos of waterfalls and mountain ranges with a Bible verse. A few (typically the smaller churches) have full color bulletins. But we have never seen a concerted effort to tie imagery to the sermon. Why not? Messages delivered with imagery have an 80% greater chance of being learned.
The time has come. It is now possible to illustrate the weekly sermon.
A project of 2×2 for 2014 will be to develop visual resources to accompany the weekly lectionary. These will be available in editable form. Individual slides can be referenced to print in a bulletin for parishioners to take home and keep in a shoebox to pass on to a child someday.
If they are helpful to you, please let us know.
Look for the first slide show on the baptism of Jesus later this week.
photo credit: Photo Extremist via photopin cc