In recent articles in Touchstone, I emphasised the importance of contextualising and conceptualising resources, drawing attention to the validity of creating resources that are related to the contexts where we practice our ministry.

If the resources we create have no connection with the contexts where we practice our ministry, they are not going to be effective. Similarly, the concepts we use in our leading of worship and preaching should be from the local context in order to appeal to our audience. This article emphasises the importance of visual resources. Visual aids make a huge difference in our practice of ministry, especially when leading worship and preaching. Our spoken and written words can be more appealing to our audience if they are accompanied with images or pictures. Hiral Joseph Macwan in her article “Using Visual Aids as Authentic Material in ESL Classrooms”, remarks, “Learning is positively affected by presenting visual and verbal aids together.” Macwan’s opinion is in line with the view of philosopher Aristotle, who believed that thinking is impossible without an image.

This is neither a new discovery nor a new idea; we have known about the vitality of visual aids in worship for they have been used in church for years. However, it’s worth mentioning as a reminder of their constant benefit as well as the importance of context in using visual aids. If our visual aids are not connected with our contexts, they won’t have any impact. In addition, worship leaders and preachers must ensure that visual aids are carefully chosen to meet not only the context of the message proclaimed but also the context of their audience. Over the years of my ministry, I realized visual aids not only attract the attention of my audience, but mean they also remember the message for a long time. When I attend a service being led by someone else, I can observe the concentration of the congregation on the person who is leading the service because of the use of visual aids.

I realise that there are some who are reluctant or even resistant to using such mechanisms. There are a variety of reasons for that attitude, but one of the common claims is that visual aids cause disruption and distraction during the delivery of the sermon, the primary focus of the worship time, in their opinion. Jesus’s use of parables and stories to assist his audience in understanding his message was very effective. In Matthew chapter 13 there are five parables that Jesus uses as a way to picture the kingdom of God.

I imagine that if Jesus was growing up in our time he would certainly use modern visual aid facilities to assist him in delivering his message. The late Rev Dr Philip Culbertson in his book entitled, A Word Fitly Spoken, remarks, “The collected testimony of the Gospels points to Jesus’ skill as an evocative storyteller; his facility with metaphor and his resourcefulness with picturesque speech were sources of his attraction for the general population.” If Jesus’ use of parables was essential to delivering his message, visualizing resources for our leading of worship and preaching should be essential as well in our time and context.