Every July, LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK) hosts a sermon series called “At the Movies” that uses movie clips to illustrate spiritual truths. And every year LifeChurch.tv sets new attendance records.
To add some extra fun to the sermon series, each campus decorates their facility with a movie theme. This year Stillwater’s campus did Field of Dreams and created a baseball diamond in their lobby complete with dirt. However, my favorite theme from this year is the Tulsa campus’ Toy Story theme. Here are some highlights:
OUTSIDE
Before you even enter the church, you are greeted by a Toy Story “At the Movies” wall mural and Pizza Planet golf carts to shuttle you to the door.
ENTRANCE
As you enter the building, you pass through a tunnel of Legos and pop out from under a giant bed into a lobby child’s room full of larger than life toys.
INSIDE
The lobby features Buzz Lightyear himself greeting guests in front of an over-sized Etch-A-Sketch (his packaging is off to the side). Toys sit atop a giant furniture. Aliens sit inside a toy rocket. And the church refreshment stand is now a Pizza Planet franchise.
Also, watch out for the giant electrical cord!
To experience an “At the Movies” sermon, visit one of LifeChurch.tv’s many campuses or attend online at one of 48 weekly service times. Due to movie licensing rights, these sermons will not be available to watch online after the sermon series, so be sure to catch “At the Moves” while it is still going on.
Special thanks to @johnadavis (LifeChurch.tv Logistcs Director) and @derrickhenslee (LifeChurch.tv Tulsa Campus Pastor) for taking the photos.
Recently the Barna Group and the reThink Group teamed up to explore how having a child influences a parent’s connection to a church or faith community. Here are some highlights:
How parents say having kids affects their connection to a faith community:
50% did not change involvement
>> Most common among Northeast and West USA, atheists/agnostics (90%), non-Christian religions (70%), and among college graduates
20% increased already active involvement
>> Most common among lower income homes and Hispanics
17% began attending after a long period of not going
>> Most common among Republicans and political conservatives
5% became active in a faith community for the first time >> Most common among Midwest USA, Catholics, and Hispanics
4% became less active >> Most common among single parents, never married parents, and Asians
What I love about this study is it is a great example of why we can’t assume all people are alike or even that all subcultures are alike. Not every parent is affected the same way by having kids. And what is probable for college-educated atheist parents in the Northeast isn’t necessarily probable for a lower-income Hispanic parent in the Midwest.
Statistics like these are incredibly useful in letting us compare our sociological observations with scientific trends. They are a sounding board. However, one of the most important things you can do is learn the unique probability of the community that you are called to reach. Rather than surveys and polls, the best way to do this is listen, ask questions, get out into your community’s different cultures, and listen some more.
If you can understand the microstatistics of your community’s niche, then you can better understand how you can turn the bad statistics into good statistics.
For Discussion: - Describe the types of cultures that your ministry reaches.
- What do you do to better understand these cultures?
Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) has a reputation for experimenting with creative arts to tell the story of Christ. I like the simple execution but powerful imagery of the backdrop for their Easter weekend worship.
As worship leaders led the congregation in song, three painters began writing bright red-pixeled letters in the background.
It spelled “Amazing Grace.”
At this point, they began singing the song Amazing Grace, and the red letters became a crown of thorns as an image of Christ on the cross appeared behind the letters.
Viruses can teach us a lot of things. You can be infected by an idea.
In 11 iterations of a U.S. Christian discipling 3 people then them doing the same, you’d pretty much cover all of America. What if each church committed to plant 3 churches in its lifetime?
If we want to reproduce, we need to have something that is reproducible. If it can’t be easily passed on to another, then you shouldn’t do it.
Big budgeted churches are clunky and not easily reproduced. Paul planted a church in 9 days. If your concept of leadership takes 7 years of seminary, it is too complicated.
The key is to let people learn God on their own. Show people the Scripture; ask them what it says; and then ask them what they are going to do about it.
If Jesus said no to the cross, would we still have forgiveness? The power of forgiveness has truly been placed in our hands. All we have to do to tell someone they are not forgiven is say nothing.
We’ve got to go slow in order to go fast. We’ve got to start with the right people. Sometimes it just takes one person. We focus on the one in order to reach the many.
Not everyone attends church, but people are more likely to attend church during Christmas and Easter. For an extra nudge of motivation, many churches plan special Christmas services. Here are two of 2009’s creative church Christmas promos:
Each December thousands of churches give special performances for Christmas such as carols, bell choirs, and live nativities. In recent years, it has been popular to perform Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs and “drummer boy” solos (often with trash cans). If you want some fresh and early creative inspiration for your 2010 Christmas church service, here are three of the most creative church Christmas performances of 2009.
GRANGER COMMUNITY CHURCH (Granger, IN)
For the first 4 weeks of December, Granger Community Church had A Christmas Carol-themed sermon series. They created an ingenious musical tie-in by rewriting the words to “Carol of the Bells” to tell the tale of Scrooge.
North Point Community Church performed Christmas carols with a multi-site twist - 3 campuses (with 4 stages) gave a synchronized Christmas performance and traded off performing via satellite feed.
One of the wisest things a pastor can do is learn from other churches. Ministry is a busy vocation, so it is important use your limited time wisely when looking for churches to study.
There are roughly 320,000 churches in the United States, and obviously no one has time to study them all. In fact, few people have time to study all 421 churches from the 16 big “top churches” lists since 2004. If you are looking for some top churches to watch in America, I have created mashups of the top churches to study in the areas of growth, innovation, church planting, size, influence, and overall.
