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The Rev. Joseph Garlington strides across the long stage, a tiny microphone booming his voice out to the congregation at Covenant Church of God in Wilkinsburg.

Above him, the ceiling is crisscrossed by a hundred stage lights aimed at the pulpit. Garlington suddenly stops, fixing his gaze directly on camera No. 1.

"There are those who say, 'Well, I can go to church on the Internet.' Yes, but tell me how you can get the (Holy) Communion," he says, his voice rising as he addresses an estimated 20,000 people across the globe tuned into the service through computers.

Across the country, churches are getting the techno-revelation of the 21st century. Nondenominational megachurches are leading the charge, but now a growing number of mainline churches are wiring themselves into emerging multimedia and going digital with worship services.

Critics say blending technology with worship detracts from religion's ultimate message, while backers say utilizing available technology is necessary for religion to stay relevant in peoples' lives.

"I love it. It's keeping up with the generation we're in," Michel Fuller, 36, of Fox Chapel, said of the big screens and flashy video at Covenant Church of God.

With the opening of an $8 million facility in April, Victory Family Church in Cranberry transformed its youth wing into a free video arcade and pool hall for high school and junior high students.

Each Wednesday night, the doors open a half-hour before a worship service exclusively for teenagers.

The teens can play pool, foosball and air hockey, or lounge at the cafe with a latte. They can watch one of the six high-definition TVs mounted on the wall, play the popular first-person shooter game Halo 2 on Xbox 360 -- one of nine video game consoles -- or race a friend in the racing simulation arcade game Rush 2049 at one of the wing's four arcade units.

"The number one thing is to make teenagers feel church doesn't have to be boring. It's not a place where you go where it's all about rules and regulations," said Jode Holden, young adults pastor. The result is a 40 percent growth in just a few months in the number of teens participating in the church's youth ministry program, he said.

But the devices used to transmit the gospel could wind up becoming more important than the message, said Brad Abare, founder of the Los Angeles-based Center for Church Communication.

After all, "Jesus didn't say go into the world and use a soundboard and good lighting," Abare said. The point is to spread the Gospel, he said.

The number of Protestant churches using Web sites, large-screen projection systems, electronic fund transfers, satellite broadcasting technology and e-mail blasts for congregational communication doubled last year from 2000, according to a report by The Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., firm that tracks church trends.

Charismatic megachurches in the western U.S. remained the tech leaders, but smaller, mainline congregations across the country saw the most rapid growth in the use of technology, Barna Vice President David Kinnaman said.

Religion has emerged as the second-largest category of Web sites -- music is No. 1 -- based on a recent breakdown by Google, said Christopher Helland, professor of sociology and religion at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Online spiritual options include hundreds of streaming "godcasts" for the iPod, virtual pilgrimages with cameras trained 24/7 on the Wailing Wall and other holy sites, thousands of religious blogs, downloadable PowerPoint sermons and sites for prayer posts.

Rather than visit the Vatican, for example, online pilgrims can take a virtual tour of its museums.

"From the art perspective you could do that, but spiritually, it's not the same as being at the tomb of Peter," said the Rev. Charles Bober, pastor at St. Kilian Church in Mars.

With hundreds of years of tradition and liturgy to answer to, religions such as Catholicism mostly have kept jumbo projection screens and video cameras out of their sanctuaries, Bober said.

That also is the case with Judaism, where the issue is whether using multimedia devices violates the rule forbidding the use of mechanical aides on the Sabbath, said Rabbi James Rudin, senior inter-religious adviser for the American Jewish Committee, based in New York City.

But outside of the strictly Orthodox setting, that's likely to change, he said.

Last year, Rudin visited a Jewish reform synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla., that used a small camera to project the reading of the sacred Torah scroll on a big screen so all eyes could see the text.

Such innovations haven't arrived in Pittsburgh yet, but worshippers at Temple Emanuel in Mt. Lebanon can download audio of the week's Torah reading to their iPod, something Rabbi Jessica E. Locketz said the synagogue does by linking its Web site to the national Jewish reform movement's site.

In Israel, people with questions on Jewish law can text-message a rabbi, and one of three rabbis on call will answer within 20 minutes, said Heidi Campbell, a Texas A&M University assistant professor who has been studying how religions use technology.

As innovations become more affordable and younger people replace baby boomers in religion's ranks, the surge toward even greater use of technology is certain to continue.

But congregation leaders agree, some things will never change.

"Human touch can never be replaced," Rudin said. "The congregation will always be the sum of its people."

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