What Color of Stage Lighting Can Get the Most Salvations?

Did you know that you can use specific hues of the color spectrum to manufacture the best emotional responses to your worship service? Worship Tech Director can help!
It’s not satire.

The above graphic is from the site’s Facebook advertisement. Each color, they claim, can invoke a different emotional response from the crowd. And yet, this tactic of clear and explicit emotional manipulation is not uncommon among churches. This Facebook ad just happened to honestly and publicly advertise what is typically only talked about at high-dollar multimedia consultations with megachurch leadership teams.
Lighting, fog machines, strobes and lasers make changing emotion a matter of science. And when emotions are shifted and shaped by aesthetic appeal to optical nerves, the Holy Spirit is credited for genuine spiritual renewal.

The “ministry’s” claim that their lighting can produce the desired emotional results isn’t junk science. It’s a well-known fact. The Journal of Consumer Psychology explains that the more intense the light on the eyes the more emotional a response one will have. They write, “Thus, turning down the light, effortless and unassuming as it may seem, can reduce emotionality in everyday decisions, most of which take place under bright light.”
Of course, these kinds of churches don’t want to reduce emotionality, but they’ve learned that rapid changes in lighting  – common that you’ll see in night clubs, Cirque de Soleil and megachurches – can take people on an emotional roller coaster. This emotionality replicates what the church leaders explain to people is a move of the Third Person of the Trinity.
Restaurants use certain colors of lights to make their patrons hungry. Bars use certain colors of lights to make their patrons thirsty. Clubs use certain colors of lights to make their patrons amorous and to lower inhibitions. The ‘worship teams’ or ‘Ministers of the Creative Arts’ know these tricks, and attempt to churn out emotions by their lighting colors of choice.
But don’t take our word for it – take the word of those in the industry, who advertise their services to produce exactly the kind of emotional manipulation that churches want.
When the Holy Spirit is active, He is manifest in leading people to truth through sound doctrine (John 16:13), convicting people of sin (John 16:8), and producing fruits like godliness and self control (Galatians 5:23). In other words, when the Holy Spirit is active, He is manifest in ways that typically do not typify the churches that use mood lighting.