churchremix.com

Video games, you tube, and facebook should change the way we do church.

Leonard sweet published a book several years ago where he made the argument the church should become EPIC. The acronym stands for E-xperential P-articipatory I-mage based C-connected.  Len’s argument is strengthened by the immense popularity of social networks and gaming.  Take a look at just three forms of digital media and what they are saying.

Video Games Besides the opportunity to escape a possibly unpleasant reality the video game offers control to whoever picks up the “controller.”  In this alternate reality you are in charge.  Whether it’s playing tiger woods golf on the wii or leading an elite fighting unit into the fray you are the boss.  You create and manipulate your own destiny.  Moreover, the gaming world pulls the player into the center of that universe. 

The very architecture of the church betrays the need for people to participate in community.  We are working very hard each week to create an experience which can’t be replicated anywhere else than the next sunday @ church.  While the services we plan are meant to be a blessing they may actually be inhibiting our congregation from actively adopting a lifestyle of worship and a daily journey with God.  

Ideas for implementation Consider the interactive participatory elements made available in your church.  Whether it’s mass collaboration on planning, small groups where the true life of the church is lived out, or multiple opportunities for the people in your congregation to serve for the church to thrive it needs to take a cue from video games.

Youtube Am i the only idiot who thought You Tube was ridiculous when it first came out?  Okay, besides laughing my rear off at the little kid throwing a baseball at his dad’s, you know what, i thought this was stupid.  Ultimately the popularity of youtube tells us two things.  1) people have way too much time on their hands.  2) the world has a story to share, a cause to enlist others, or something that makes them laugh and wants it to be lived on video for the rest of the world to see.  This is the ultimate form of participation.  On You Tube you can be the star, your story can be heard.  In case you think youtube is just an outlet for stupid humor search social action or my story.

Ideas for implementation Youtube is a place where people can find their voice.  As the church considers the popularity of this medium it should also ask how can our congregation find it’s own voice in the sea of faces attending church each week?  We have recently set up a video booth for our wednesday night youth services.  The sign outside the booth says your story.  Teens are invited into the booth and have 30 seconds on camera to tell us their story.  Their comments range from serious stories of transformation to funny events of the week.  During our services we play back about 4 minutes of each weeks recording.  

Facebook  I don’t believe we are becoming more siloed as a culture, we are becoming more connected.  Whether it’s myspace, linkedin, twitter, or yammer people are more connected than ever.  My parents generation says this is the death of face to face communication.  If it is, it’s certainly not the death of communication.  Look, I can’t remember cursive.  I spent God only knows how many years learning how to link my letters together, why?  Some guy some where decided that was the evolution of writing.  He was wrong.  I don’t write in cursive and I am far more well read and literate than I was when i did.  The point, things change.  If face to face communication is ending, which i do not believe for one second it is, then it’s not the death of communication.  More than ever people want to be connected.

Ideas for implementation Consider a new form of church community where we are no longer bound by geographical constraints.  I love my local church but i also enjoy hearing other people preach.  It’s no new idea to upload a sermon to the web but why does it stop there.  If our sermons were uploaded in such a way people could respond and connect in virtual community we may see the church itself reinvented.

The church building and it’s liturgy itself is the manifestation of cultural interpretation of how the church should meet, what if we remixed?

My Dad is a salesman, he can sell ice to eskimo’s. My whole life I have watched my Dad build companies based on his ability to sell a product. The past 15 years he has built a construction company and to my knowledge never lifted a hammer, unless it was to chase down a subcontractor. Salesman, at times, have gotten a bad wrap. You can see a bad salesman coming from a mile away, with a fake laugh and sketchy, “I understand you eyes. There is a completely different class of salesman out there, one I count my father to be a part of. The great salesman don’t sell, not at first. Great salesman first and foremost believe in their product. If you go to their home you will find what they sell on their shelves or in their driveway. When you have met a great salesman you hear a conviction in their voice about their product and almost always leave feeling as if you weren’t sold anything, you leave and tell your friends… “I made the decision to buy, no one sold me.” All the fancy sales techniques and approaches to making the close are useless if the guy making the sale doesn’t believe in his product.

Where am I going?
Well I’d like to tell you about my new company, Amway.
Just kidding, roll with me…

I first read the phrase form follows function at a conference in 02. The phrase had been around for many years and was used primarily within design circles. At the conference a pastor put it on the screen and kind of blew my mind. Coming from a background of youth ministry my general strategy in preaching and programming had been to think of something cool and then try to layer the bible on top of it. Our creative meetings were based on discussions about setting stuff on fire, blowing things up, using disco balls, or possibly setting a disco ball on fire and then watching it blow up! What’s the point of that? Exactly, we didn’t have one. Form was dictating function. The phrase bounced around in my head for a couple of months, “form follows function.” I leveled out with a new focus… before I preach another sermon I need something to say. Profound, huh?

You are probably smarter than me.

You are certainly more spiritual than me.
But are you certain you have something to say?
What is it?

Peter and John, testifying in front of the Sanhedrin, were told to not speak about Jesus. “But Peter and John replied, ‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

Whether you think you are selling something or not consider this one question… do you buy your product? Are you making a pitch weekly for something you haven’t even bought yourself? Do you have a message burning in your gut for which you cannot help speaking about? We can fire up video clips, illustrations, and all the object lessons in the world but unless we are personally sold on what we are saying we are nothing but a bad salesman.

Don’t preach until you have something to say.

The world is full of nice people and good communicators but we, preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. I Corinthians 1:23-25

I haven’t posted in a while, maybe from the insecurity I feel over competing with the epistles Scott writes. Blogging is about honesty, right? I do realize the differences between Scott and I, and really know that there is no “competition”. It seems that we tend to do this sort of thing in all the time in church life. It’s no competition, and we know that, but we still don’t like to underachieve. That aside, I know that I have different areas to contribute in that others might, so I am going to contribute in those ways.

I just recently saw a video by Brian McLaren on the Worship Industry. I am very intrigued by what he has to say about how if we aren’t careful, our services become rated on how they make us feel as a consumer of worship. What do you think about the video?

If you’ve ever watched MTV2, or Nickelodeon, you’ll notice a few things. If there’s not a commercial on, they are using every bit of square footage they have on the air. Buffer moments between shows are geared to hook the viewer in hopes that they will not lose them to channel flipping.

On Nickelodeon, you’ll be watching your average kiddie show, followed by an upbeat 2 minute interview with some random kid about his pet kangaroo. And before you know it, you’re into the next show. In an article about their programming strategies, MTV2 execs referred to this as using every part of the “grid.”

In designing worship services, are we examining and using every part of the grid? It is a question I am starting to ask my teammates every week. In working with students, it’s absolutely necessary to look at every part of the grid, since we are competing for a generation’s attention.

Too often we look at the pieces on the grid that take up the most space – the songs and the speaking. Not to say these pieces aren’t important, but what about the other small portions of the grid we are overlooking? The easiest parts of the grid to forget about are transitions.

After observing service after service, trying to figure out why our students are starting to “get it,” we realized that part of our success has been realized due to our attention to the details of transitions.

Look at your service, and notice what transpires whenever you are transitioning from one element to the next. Here are some questions you can ask when examining your grid:

1. What happens between the time the students enter, and the time the service starts?
2. If someone is praying on stage, does it fit the mood and the pace of the moment?
3. How can we use even basic lighting to enhance transitions?
4. Whenever a person goes up to the stage to speak, what is happening at that moment with the screens, lights, and audio?
5. If we are moving to an altar or response time, most likely that transition hinges on the words of the person leading it. Are those words being chosen carefully enough to handle such an important transition?
6. If a video is being used in the service to make a point, is it placed on the right spot of the grid to achieve maximum results? Furthermore, how do you transition out of a video?
7. How do you transition either before or after an announcement time in a way that is not distracting or jarring?
8. How effective is your band transitioning between songs?
9. Does your speaker handle transitions between points in a way that maintains the group’s attention?

These are only a handful of questions that you can use to start examining your grid. Attention to detail results in attention from your audience.

If we don’t use every bit of the grid, we have to realize that those parts of the grid will be empty, which means we risk people falling through the cracks. If we have the most important message in the world to deliver, why should we strive for anything less than to use up every bit of the grid that we have to communicate effectively?

In part two of this article, we’ll talk about the process of determining what and who should be on your grid.

 I hear that you don’t change
How to you expect to keep up with the trends?
You won’t survive the information age
Unless you plan to change the truth
To accommodate the brilliance of men, the brilliance of men

And I hear that you don’t change
How do you expect to keep up with the trends?
You won’t survive the information age
Unless you plan to change the truth
To accommodate the brilliance of men, the brilliance of men
(Letter from a Concerned Follower by Pedro the Lion)

It’s a strange and beautiful dichotomi.  The truth of God never changes;  There is nothing new under the sun.  The problem is, we see change all around us.

Traditional forms of communications don’t have the same impact they once had.  Even major news organiztions, from cable news to local newspapers, are having to rethink ways to communicate with their audience. SMS Messaging. Online Video. Social Networking.  Web 2.0. It seems that the world is moving forward at an astonishing pace, and that the truth of God is lagging behind.

The problem lies not in the truth, but in the world’s perception of God and Christianity.  As the Church, it is our very difficult responsibilty to teach the timeless, never-changing love of Jesus to a world in a way that seems new and improved.  Isn’t that what we all want?  New and improved!  Now with new marshmallows shapes!!  New look and feel!!

That’s where the Church Remix comes in.  It is about constantly challanging the means of delivery and the packaging, but never changing the product.  I’m motivated to do this not because of the challange, but because I know that the product I have to offer the world is the best out there.