In Houston, pastor Joel Osteen moved the Lakewood Church into the Compaq Center, a former NBA stadium, to accommodate throngs of parishioners. Three giant video screens help deliver the sermon to the far corners of the cavernous church, with an HDTV upgrade on the way. Strip lights behind the pulpit use a range of tungsten halogen lamps to create different lighting effects.



Now that materialism has struck our world churches have seen attendance slimming down. To tackle this situation Sony, Panasonic, Avid and Hitachi are undertaking the noble deed of installing what they call ‘house of worship technology’ to woo people back in.



With the help of image magnification systems and large-screen video displays churches have seen rows being filled up once again. Patrick Teagarden, one of the sound-and-video technicians says, ‘It’s like going to a rock concert.’



With this trend clergymen see themselves directly competing with MTV, video games and the Internet as they are now Webcasting using high-tech multicamera operations and sound systems lifting up the spirit in churches. Thanks to this technology Houston-based Lakewood Church, recorded a weekly attendance of 30,000.



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