Technology​

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This page will help you sort through the ways in which the technology available in Mulder Chapel can support your service. 

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Personnel.  The chapel stewards have been trained in how to use the WTS tech system, and have agreed to be available as Chapel Host under the supervision of David Becker. 

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As chapel planner, you are responsible—in conjunction with your chapel steward—to discern your needs and communicate them to the tech hosts assigned to your date. 

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Amplification.  Though our space is acoustically live, and you may have a strong voice, it is most hospitable to 

use microphones for everyone who speaks (or nearly so). We have multiple hand-held mics, lavalier mics (over-the-ear and lapel options), as well as corded mics. We also have a podium microphone. In addition, singers and quieter instruments may also be mic'd and amplified. 

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Projection. If you are using a powerpoint or keynote presentation, you should send it via email the day before your chapel service to chapel@westernsem.edu. Templates for presentations can be found here. 

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Lighting. You can count on the Chapel Hosts to have the lights on and appropriately set for the room layout (provided you communicate this info to them beforehand). Click HERE for instructions about room layout options. If you’d like anything outside of this, make sure to let them know.

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Video. We have the capacity to project images onto screens on either side of the sanctuary, and in the front over the musician’s bay. They can be different images or the same ones. If you are going to use the projectors for the service, please let the Chapel Hosts know in advance. Please let them know which screens you would like to use and what you would like to project on them.
 

Recording. Western Theological Seminary regularly records our daily chapel services (audio and video) for educational purposes. These recordings are the property of WTS. Recordings are made in compliance with copyright law. They are not otherwise made available to churches or other non-WTS parties, or used in seminary classes for instructional purposes, without the permission of the person who prepared and led the service. Students assembling a portfolio may request an electronic copy of a service-recording to share with a prospective church.

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Streaming. This year we are hoping to stream all our services to our DL community. You can find the link here.

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Discernment. With the influx of new, cool technology there is always the impulse to “use it because we have it.” Chapel planners are urged to remember that form carries meaning, and everything done in worship communicates something. For example, when we’re all sitting in comfy seats, in a dark room with loud music, watching moving pictures on a big screen, we’re borrowing lots of ‘meaning’ from cultural contexts other than worship. Our bodies go into theater mode, and we fall into passive consumerist patterns of behavior and thought. 

 

On the other hand there are all sorts of great ways to deepen moments of worship through the artistic use of projected images, amplification, etc. For instance, on an intercultural immersion trip, a student might make a video of people at a Mexican orphanage. We might watch that video in chapel as a prompt for prayer.

 

All this to say: let’s discern well how to use our audio, visual, lighting, and space-shifting capabilities and use them all in a way that furthers the aim of these chapels: deeper devotion and discipleship.