My question is this:  Do you view your “lighting person” and “slide person” as just an operator? Or something more? 

If they themselves are choosing slides, colors, fonts…are they not the designer/artist/architect?

Let’s go one more. 

If that designer/artist/architect is choosing specific imagery and colors to tell a story during a worship moment, is that person now not a “visual worship leader“?  Maybe leader isn’t the right word, or is it?

Behind the word leader you find guide.  Isn’t, at times, the visual artist guiding the congregation through a story or message of the Word using imagery? 

Isn’t that what art does, and has done in the past?  Have you looked through an illustrated Bible? 

Art can stand alone just as music can, as well as other worship elements can.  Sometimes it’s necessary to have no music, and instead have a story told by imagery alone.  It lets your mind work and process solely on the imagery and what it means.  Imagery can also be transcend language.  It allows for anyone to understand without having to read text. 

With that in mind, let’s look at a worship team/department, at a church/camp/conference…etc.  Worship leaders, tech personnel, band members…

They are together leading…guiding…directing the congregation in worship, using the gifts and talents God gave them.  They all support one another in telling the story, while at the same time, leading in their areas of creativity and skill.  In regards to visual elements, I don’t think it’s a hierarchy; where the mindset is the slides support the song which support the message given by the pastor.  

I believe we are all revolving around God’s message, and, at different times, we use our gifts to lead the telling of the story with one another and to one another.

(For Google fun, click here)