Sometimes designing sermon series graphics can be tough. It’s a design niche riddled with puns, goofiness, and bad art, which is problematic for artists on the hunt for design inspiration.

What you create is a direct result of your inputs.

This is true of everything in life. If you want to be a better designer, surround yourself with the best quality you can find. If you want to worsen or stagnate your skills, surround yourself with subpar work.

Designer Jim LePage is creating some inspiring illustrations for each book of the Bible. His sermon series art is complete up through Hosea. More design candy to come. I find his style and interpretation to be some fresh inspiration for designers creating expository sermon series graphics.

Here are my favorites:

EXODUS

NUMBERS

JUDGES

1 SAMUEL

NEHEMIAH

JOB

For Discussion:
>> What is your favorite source of design inspiration for sermon series? Share links in your comments.

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.

Like free church resources? Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) is now offering free creative resources to download from their new site, Seeds.

The church resources include artwork, motion graphics, background music, promo videos, opener videos, mini-movies, drama scripts, slides, banners, worship guides, sermon series kits, and more. There’s something for kid’s ministry, student ministry, and plenty for regular worship services, too!

Best of all, the production quality is outstanding. Church on the Move has been winning ADDY Awards and producing mainstream quality content for years. Now you can have that same quality for free! Samples include:

FREE SLIDES & ARTWORK

Please Turn Off Your Phone - Slide

Communion Instructions - Slide

FREE VIDEOS (RSS readers must visit post to see videos)

Dad Life - Father’s Day Video

Why Worry - Drama Skit

Mommy Rhapsody - Mother’s Day Performance

FREE SERMON SERIES (RSS readers must visit post to see videos)

Kidnapped - Sermon Series Opener

Why Worry - Sermon Series Opener

This or That - Student Ministries Sermon Series Artwork

I Love My Bible - Kidmin Sermon Series Artwork

To start downloading free church resources, visit Seeds.ChurchontheMove.com

Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels, discussed the ever-changing gospel that never changes during Catalyst Conference’s third session. Shane is an ex-adman turned Mennonite pastor. Here is what he said:

Christianity is fundamentally a communication event. God uses many media channels.

We have a little assumption that we all hold very dear… the methods change but the message stays the same. This assumption means that we have to change our methods while protecting the message. But this assumption assumes that each medium is neutral and doesn’t affect the message.

But the advertising industry teaches you the opposite. The media is the message. This means that how you say something determines the message more than what you say.

For example, there is a huge difference between printed words and images. Printed words are processed in the left hemisphere of the brain in a logical way. Images are processed in the right hand of the brain are processed in the emotional right hemisphere of the brain. Images and words are not interchangeable. They are fundamentally different ways of doing things.

In Mark 2:22, Jesus says no one pours new wine into old wine skins. The unchanging message of the gospel then actually changes with each medium. Reality is the ever-changing gospel never changes.

To explain how something can always change but never change is like this… a man always stays a man but he constantly changes from a baby to an old man throughout his life. A mustard tree will always be a mustard tree but simultaneously always be growing and changing.

You don’t have to be afraid of breaking the gospel. The gospel has no room for fear. All you have to do is love.

As each tree grows higher and higher, its roots grow deeper and deeper. The Bible has untouched diamonds buried in it that need roots to grow deeper in order to discover them. But in order to do that we must become gardeners of the gospel rather than fearful guards.

Ben Arment is the creative mind behind STORY conference. He also has a big heart for helping pastors reach their communities, particularly church planters and urban pastors. In fact, he wants to be able to invite 400 urban pastors from Chicago’s hardest areas to STORY for free.

But he needs your help…

Will you help one inner city pastor go to STORY by giving a scholarship?

All you need to do is buy 1 ticket and write “urban scholarship” in the comments section at the end of the checkout process. Your gift will train, refresh, and inspire a Chicagoland pastor.

And while you are at it, you should buy a ticket for yourself, too. I will be at STORY, and I’d love to meet you there.

LifeChurch.tv’s interactive online Bible, YouVersion, is about to take the interactivity up a notch and to congregations around the world.

It’s called YouVersion Live (October 2009 launch). And it allows pastors, conference speakers, teachers, and group leaders to share content and real-time feedback on mobile devices during live events. Essentially, YouVersion Live is interactive digital message notes that allow the audience to:

• take notes and save them online
• read the Bible
• ask questions and get answers during the message
• do surveys anonymously via a YouVersion Live poll
• get extra content via blog links, YouTube videos, and other resources
• share the message with a friend
• request prayer
• give online

It is easy to create a YouVersion Live message guide. All a speaker has to do is drag and drop the features he wants to use into his template on a super-simple YouVersion Live admin area. All an audience member needs is a web-enabled phone, netbook, or laptop.

Already over 1.8 million iPhone users have YouVersion on their phone, which is equivalent to 1 in 27 iPhones. YouVersion’s rapid growth means your user base already exists. All you need to do is use YouVersion Live’s super-simple admin panel, and you can take your audience engagement to incredible new places.

YouVersion Live launches in October 2009. Until then, you can sign up for updates at YouVersion.com/live.

To continue our discussion about why VideoTeaching.com is the next big church model, let’s take a look at what the video teaching church model is not.

It is not sermons on TV.
It is not a sermon vodcast.
It is not online archived sermon videos.

These forms of “preaching” have no community aspect, but the video teaching church model has pastors and/or elders and fellow believers to help you grow and keep you accountable. A church model is more than just Christian content.

Obviously, some people might replace attending church with watching VideoTeaching.com directly, but those same people may just as likely replace attending church with Christian television, podcasts, the Bible, a C.S. Lewis book, or even nothing at all.

We do need to cautiously ask questions before we dive into a new way of doing church. Video teaching is not for every church’s calling. To help us ask better questions, let us resolve one myth.

MYTH - Video teaching replaces human interaction.

Truth: The DNA of a church determines the quality of its community. While having an in-the-flesh preacher is one of hundreds of factors that can make a church more likely to have strong community, it is no guarantee.

Standard Church: Not every church with a live in-the-flesh preacher has good community. In fact, some preachers rarely interact with their congregations. And some preachers that do more harm than good when they interact with their congregation. Having an in-the-flesh preacher does guarantee a strong, healthy community. Unfortunately, some of the loneliest places are churches (particularly megachurches) without a culture of relationships.

Video Teaching: Just because a church uses video teaching does not mean that church can’t have incredibly relational pastors and elders that engage, counsel, and lead the congregation outside of teaching. A video teaching church is just as capable of a standard church in having good small groups and a culture of community.

Yesterday LifeChurch.tv’s Digerati team officially launched VideoTeaching.com. Consequently, the world may never be the same.

Much like the One Prayer initiative, VideoTeaching.com allows churches to hear guest speakers via free sermon video downloads. The idea behind it is that churches can have a free resource to expand their teaching team, give the pastor occasional breaks, share the load with church planters and bi-vocational pastors, and even serve as an interim “pastor” during a leadership transition.

VIDEO TEACHING AS A CHURCH MODEL
But reality is the scope of how VideoTeaching.com can be used is far deeper and versatile. In fact, a church could use video sermons all the time. Many churches have likely not been planted because the church planter believes he is not eloquent enough, theologically deep enough, or seminary certified to preach. However, when free video sermons from some of the world’s best preachers are available, obviously this excuse is gone.

4 Possible Video Teaching Church Models

1. Central Organization
   Similar to a multi-site church, this model has central leadership that oversees all locations and determines video teaching content that is the same for all campuses. Locations could either be planted by the central organization like most multi-site church campuses or passionate followers could start a location similar to LifeChurch.tv’s Church Online watch parties.
2. Central Admin
   Similar to a denomination, this model has central leadership that oversees all locations administratively, but a campus pastor or elders determine the Video Sermon content for each location based on what that congregation’s spiritual needs are. For example, a New England location may struggle with greed while a location in Oklahoma may struggle with gluttony. While all sermon topics are important, this model allows for each campus to focus on what is most important to their spiritual walk.
3. Central Distributor
   Similar to a standard church, this model has a central distributor of sermon content such as VideoTeaching.com, but each church is independent, self-governing, and determines its own video teaching content.
4. Extra Church
   Similar to Sunday school and small groups, this model uses video teaching as extra doses of “church” in addition to weekend church services.

WHY CONSIDER VIDEO TEACHING?
Church conferences, authors, and blogs have been rallying for years for the Church to be like the early Church. We talk about organic explosive church growth that produces authentic disciples, but then we do little to change our methods. If we hardly change how we do church, then we can hardly expect to revolutionize the results we get.

So why don’t we change how we do church? I think it is because we are scared. We are scared of failing, and we are scared of doing something theologically wrong. Christians are notorious for boycotting anything new, including church organs and church choirs when they were first introduced. This is not to say that we should all jump on the Video Teaching band wagon like a bunch of lemmings. But I think we should ask questions.

Thinking rationally and theologically, why or why shouldn’t churches pursue the Video Teaching model of church?

I will be addressing some questions about video teaching in the weeks to come, including:

• What size should a video teaching church be?
• How can video teaching churches be kept spiritually accountable?
• How does the video medium affect the message?
• What about the development of future preachers?
• What are the advantages of video teaching versus one or a few preachers?
• What about video teaching children’s ministry?
• Will video teaching create more celebrity pastors?
• What does a multi-site video teaching house gigachurch look like?

For Discussion:
- Share your thoughts about video teaching in the comments and join in the unraveling discussion in the weeks to come.