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.
LifeChurch.tv is partnering with XXXchurch to host The Porn Event online next week (May 23-28, 2010) and discuss the real-life effects of pornography.
There are 40 different Porn Event times, but each session has a specific focus either for guys (Sun, Tues, & Thur) or girls (Mon, Wed, & Friday). For specific times and more information, visit www.ThePornEvent.com.
LifeChurch.tv is launching a new 9-month apprenticeship program for young leaders called LeadershipXP. It is designed to cultivate young leaders and dreamers by giving them responsibility in the trenches and immersing them in a special mentorship group.
LeadershipXP is not an internship or a coaching network. It is a unique flavor of experiential learning via mentorship, serving, responsibility, freedom, and collaboration. It is an immersive lifestyle that develops your character, leadership skills, spirituality, and emotional intelligence.
There are requirements:
Age: you must be 18-24 years old
Time: you must commit to a 9-month experience
Money: you must pay the $3,250 investment (housing included)
Location: you must agree to work at and live near one of LifeChurch.tv’s many locations
Deadline to apply is May 28.
LeadershipXP begins September 7.
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:
LifeChurch.tv’s YouVersion Bible has launched some enhanced Bible reading plans for online users and mobile phone users. There are over 20 free Bible reading plans to choose from. Features include:
Progress charts.
Synchronized Website and mobile accounts for your plan and progress.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
For Christmas 2008, LifeChurch.tv’s Tulsa campus wanted to do something special at a low cost. The solution was temporary lights, scaffolding, and trash cans. And it looked like this:
