multi-everything

Here's a nice short article on multi-sensory prayer

http://www.emergingchurch.info/stories/visions/prayer.htm

from an excellent UK website on the Emerging Church

it speaks of what I am doing - not so much multimedia as multi-sensory

It seems to me that "multi" is what the postmodern arena is all about

multiple voices - multi-cultural, multi-faith - multiple/global perspectives
multiple meanings - multivalent - language and images are more symbolic than literal
multi-sensory - 'the medium/environment is the message' - experiential communication
multiple-intelligences - multiple stimuli affect different people in different ways
multi-directional - communication and experience are immersive
multiple-options - choice, interactivity
multiple-characters - role playing, avatars, multiple signatures
multiple endings - open-ended narratives, the story isnt over yet

there are a few more bits to this and I've been working it up from both the practical and more theoretical ends.

of course, all of these things can be 'good' or 'bad', which many church folks don't seem to get. the automatic assumption is that 'multiple' is wrong and I'm trying to work out why that is. suggestions welcome. after all, we have a multiple/triune deity. that's the whole point, isn't it - god and the universe and everything are very multi, and most of our finiteness is about being unitary so as to understand
and cope with ourselves and others.

I can feel a workshop coming on....

Comments

[Duncan Macleod]

Good stuff Craig
Ginghamsburg Community Church use the term "multisensory" to talk about their worship styles.
I do think it's a postmodern thing. I was talking with a group of 'in their sixties and seventies' leaders yesterday who were learning to reframe fragmentation in positive ways. They were learning to be immigrants in Postmodern Land.