A local church is using some 21st century technology to discuss a centuries-old issue.

“We’re trying to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people,” said Eve Doi, assistant director of “Blink,” an original production by Cornerstone Church of Ames.

“Blink” will combine both live stage acting and prerecorded video to tell a modernized version of the Bible’s book of Job, said Mike Despard, the show’s writer and producer.

“[Job] was very wealthy and had everything, and within a few minutes his life was turned upside down,” said Despard, who is also an ISU almunus. “The idea is that blink and things can change.”

“The story of Job is just kind of a starting point,” said Jason Brown, senior in graphic design who plays the main character’s best friend. “It’s about a man of God who loses it all and how he deals with that.”

That man is Lee Webster, a real estate developer in Minneapolis who is accused of murdering one of his employees, Brown said.

“The whole idea behind the plot of the production is that there was this murder, and Lee is obviously innocent,” he said, but with “one coincidence after another” the evidence starts to build against him.

“It’s got a lot of twists, turns and surprises . and it has kind of a secret ending,” Brown said.

The live action is set in a courtroom, Despard said, and the video is used primarily for flashbacks.

The video will be projected onto three large screens onstage behind the actors, he said.

Doing the video component was a challenge, Despard said.

“We’ve done some video stuff in the past,” he said. “But we’ve never done it to this scale.”

“I think it makes it 10 times harder,” to do a play with a video component, said Jason Crawford, sophomore in pre-business who plays the court bailiff. “But I think it makes it 10 times better, too.”

“I think it’s fantastic what technology has brought to the stage in this way,” Brown said. “I think it is a great way to dramatize what is already dramatic.”

Such combination of film and live theater is “something that we’re seeing more and more” as the technology becomes more and more available, said Jane Cox, playwright and associate professor of music. “There are many more multimedia things than there used to be.”

Even ISU theater is getting in on the trend.

Cox said video footage from World War II was used as the backdrop for the play she wrote called “Heroes Among Us,” which was performed last semester at Fisher Theater.

You use whatever you can to communicate the point, Cox said.

The point of “Blink” “is God is God, so who are we to ask?” Despard said, and also “to debate the question about good and evil.”

“Especially now with the terrorist attacks,” he said. People are asking, “Why does God allow things like that to happen?”

“We really think it’s a storyline that meets people wherever they’re at,” said Doi, who is also an ISU almunus. “I have a hard time seeing that someone who comes to see this would have a hard time relating to it.”

Thus, the show is “definitely not” just for Cornerstone members or even just for Christians, she said.

“We like to do what we call a ticketed outreach event [like this show] every couple of years,” Despard said.

“Cornerstone is really committed to the arts, especially in outreach,” Doi said.

Using drama for evangelism reflects a larger national trend, said Mary Sawyer, associate professor of religious studies who researches religion and culture.

Since 1980, a new breed of evangelical churches “have developed a new kind of worship culture of which drama is very much a part,” Sawyer said.

“There’s a kind of church, usually non-denominational and usually evangelical churches” which are sometimes called “seeker churches,” whose “major effort is to reach out” to the unchurched, Sawyer said.

These “seeker churches” are “characterized by using contemporary music and drama, audio technology and video technology,” Sawyer said.

“Part of the reason for some of these changes,” Sawyer said, “with the technology we have, we have become very visually oriented.”

So art forms that engage people visually “are looked on more favorably than they have been in the past,” Sawyer said. “You have to look at the larger picture of religion in America.”

“In the 1960s and ’70s, young people began rejecting religion” and thus didn’t pass religion on to their children, she said.

“But other people felt they wanted to sustain orthodox Christianity but without” the European cultural elements that made religion “too rationalized” and downplayed “experiencing the Spirit,” Sawyer said.

“So evangelical churches enjoyed this resurgence,” she said.

“They began reaching out to those people who had rejected traditional churches . this population of unchurched younger people,” Sawyer said.

So churches are “using things that are familiar and comfortable with the younger generation” like video and drama to communicate their message, Sawyer said.

But while this is “quite effective,” not everyone thinks this is a good thing, she said.

“Some people, older people, kind of grieve the loss of tradition,” Sawyer said.

While using theater for church may not be traditional, theater can still be a powerful medium for religious messages, Cox said.

“Certainly great religious theater can be very inspirational and persuasive,” she said. “No doubt about it.”

But as with any play, the effectiveness of a religious play “depends on the quality of it,” Cox said.

“Blink” will be a production on a professional level, Doi said.

“I don’t think people are expecting this when they come to something from church.”

Most people think church productions are stale, cliche and low-quality, Brown said, but the Cornerstone productions break that stereotype.

“It’s just a testimony to see how God’s people can really do something and do it well,” he said.

“Honestly, the ticket prices are cheaper than what you’d pay to go see a movie, but I think the quality is as good as – if not better – than anything you’d see at the Civic Center,” Doi said.

“I know I speak for everybody who’s involved,” he said. “We hope that it’s something that’s not of us, that all the glory would go not to us [but to God].”

The show will run two weekends at Cornerstone Church worship center, 56829 Highway 30, northeast of the Interstate 35 and Highway 30 intersection.

Performances will be at 7 p.m. on April 5 and 6 and April 12 and 13, and at 3 p.m. on April 7 and 14.

And while tickets will cost $5 in advance or $8 at the door, making a profit is not the goal, Doi said. “Our goal is to get a message across.”