5S...

What is 5S? designing 5S (using all 5 senses) experiential worship elements...

I am obsessed with this concept. I spend hours and hours research, searching youtube and such.
Striving to break through the fourth wall. I like to think of it as taking the design further up (designing above the audience and stage), further out (into the venue, aisle, etc.) and further in (interactive, and things that evoke emotions)…

From Wikipedia:

"The fourth wall is the imaginary wall at the front of the stage in a proscenium theater, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. Although the concept has been around since before the ancient Greeks and is used by Shakespeare, it was made explicit by Denis Diderot and spread in nineteenth century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism. Critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible screen that forever separates the audience from the stage."

visual - not just on the stage, changing it up, stations, holographic images dripping down and interacting with the people, dancers in the aisles.

sound - beyond the music, sound of the ocean, bringing sound out into the congregation (i.e. djembe drums spaced though-out the venue.

sense of smell –is the closest, most powerful sense linked to our memory. This is so under utilized in our design.

"Dr. Luca Turin a biophysicist at the University College London explains: “We don’t smell with our noses, we smell with our brains so we shouldn’t be surprised that fragrance has a direct effect on our moods"

Great research information at Scentair…

taste - well, of course there is the obvious; communion, more recently we were discussing the taste of vinegar (Mark 15: 36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink.) and actually having people taste it.


touch/kinesthetic - something to touch, clay, a box to open, different textures to explore. interactive - moving around, dancing, get off your duff

5S: This is a more centralized remix of research I’ve been compiling for months.

How do you break the "fourth wall"?