By Stephen Proctor - www.gi-inc.org

The role of the VJ is an emerging role in the Church today. The term “VJ” stands for “video jockey” or “visual jockey”, and sometimes has been known as “video DJ”. A VJ is much like a DJ…not the DJ at your local radio station that spins the top 40, but the DJ that is found turn-tabling and blending the beats that fill clubs and raves in many parts of the world. Instead of mixing pulsating rhythms and loops, a VJ might find him or herself visualizing the performance of a musical artist, taking video loops, scenes, and even live footage and mixing them into a visual tapestry that harmonizes with what the musical artist is communicating (melodically and lyrically). Let’s talk about the role of a VJ in our worship settings.

You might wonder why you’ve probably not seen these so-called “VJs” in your Sunday morning service before. The VJ, as foreign, progressive and ultra-post-contemporary as it all may sound, has actually been playing a huge role in our worship gatherings for quite some time now…under our very noses! In fact, the VJs themselves might not even know that they are VJs to begin with! They have had many other nicknames: “media guy”, “PowerPoint person”, “tech volunteer”.Ahhh…now we know who we’re talking about! It’s the person we all turn around and look at when there’s a misspelling on the screen, or when the slides aren’t syncing up with what the worship leader is singing! Yep, that’s them!

But what sets apart a “VJ” from the volunteer who turns on the PC and hits the arrow key? I don’t want to answer that for you; it’s better for you to decide for yourself. But if you have a 16 year old kid that LOVES to hang out with you and jumps at the chance to run media on Sunday…he or she is a good candidate. When you ask her to put together a slideshow of the mission trip or create a “creative” announcement and she returns with an epic masterpiece - that’s a very good sign. But if you (or whoever it is putting together the media) find yourself “hitting a homerun” in selecting backgrounds for a worship song…backgrounds (still or motion) that take the meaning of the song to a different level…well, you’re well on your way.

Many of us have started to integrate visuals into our services and events, usually in the form of lyric backgrounds.  And many of these images are starting to take on a life of their own, moving and grooving to the beat of the music. So have we reached the summit in our climb to doing media well? Can these “VJs” do anything else that might enhance our visuals and the way we are using them?

I do not claim to be the expert in this field. I have only been at this for a few years. I have no fancy credentials. Unlike Ron Burgundy, people don’t know me. But I have had some incredible opportunities and resources at my fingertips to experiment and see if there’s something more out there -- some way to take these still relatively new and fresh tools to the next level.

In my next article we’ll look at a few things I’ve learned on my journey of VJ-ing:

• how to dig for material
• creating your own media
• the benefits of mixing
• more VJ toys 

In the next edition, Proctor addresses The Art of the Worship VJ – Part 3: Going Beyond Presentation Software