My dad told me a pretty creepy story about a ceremony for my cousin (his nephew) becoming a pastor at a church (I live 500 miles away, so didn't attend). He's not a believer either though his side of my family is pretty fundamentalist, and I've introduced him to skepticism.
He said that the hymns were displayed on large lcd screens in a "follow the bouncing ball" or karaoke style. But they weren't whole hymns, it would be a couplet from one hymn, repeated 5 or 10 times, followed by another line or chorus from another, repeated again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
He described it as rather cult-like. It sounds like hypnosis through repetition to me, or similar to a mantra one would repeat to induce a trance or meditative state. Anyone have experience with anything like that?