During the final song, as the river baptism photo filled the screen, Dave saw teenagers nudging their grandparents. He saw newcomers leaning over to whisper, "What is that place?" He saw the worship leader, who usually had his eyes squeezed shut in performance, staring openly at the screen, tears streaming down his face.
And tonight, as he shut down the computer, the last image on the screen wasn't a sunset. It was a simple, scratched, beautiful black-and-white photo of light pouring through an old window.
It was a black-and-white photo, grainy and scratched. He recognized the subject immediately: The old church. Not the modern brick building with the sloped floor and fog machine they used now. The real church. The white clapboard building with the crooked steeple, the one his grandfather helped build in 1947. The one that had been torn down in 1999 to make way for a parking lot.
Because he finally understood that the best EasyWorship background wasn't the one with the highest resolution or the most dramatic lighting. It was the one that reminded the congregation not of a place they wished they were, but of the God who had been with them in the place they already were.
The background did not point to a pretty place. It pointed home .
He opened a new folder on his desktop. He named it simply: Our Story .
Marcus looked at the floor, then back up. "I never understood why she was so sad they tore it down. Now… I kind of get it. It’s like… our story was in those walls."
Sunday morning arrived. The worship team launched into the first chorus. As the screens flickered to life, a collective gasp rippled through the first few rows. Old Mrs. Gable, who had been married at that altar in 1952, put a trembling hand over her mouth.