Going High Definition…Church Style

13 posted on January 13, 2009

POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Church, Culture, Marketing

In the course of browsing through church web sites over the last couple of weeks, I stumbled across the latest cultural-ripoff sermon series: making the switch to high definition.

I’m not talking about churches offering free classes for the technically unsavvy explaining HD options and how to hook up your converter box (not a bad outreach opportunity if you ask me). No, I’m talking about the hundreds of churches across the country who prefer to put a “Christian spin” on pop-culture.

It’s the most recent series twist in a long line of bad series ideas that started with rip-offs of hit tv shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Survivor. The HD Sermon series popping up in churches across the country are equally ill-inspired and come off sounding like a bad direct mail piece.

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I recognize that for some churches a series named after a popular television show is a huge stretch and I applaud those churches for making the effort to get more in touch with where our culture is at. However, a complete pop-culture rip-off smacks of cheap, lazy, junk-mail marketing.

What They’re Really Talking About

So why not build a message series around the latest cultural shows, movies and buzz-words? Don’t you want to ‘give the people what they want’ and become more ‘culturally relevant?’

Let’s face it, during the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Survivor heyday we had all had it up to our eyeballs with television spots and marketing for those and similar shows. When you see some half-thought-out spin-off sermon series on the same topic it just sounds like more of the same. It gets lost in the static.

Some of the best and most creative sermon series I’ve seen through the years tap into something deeper than just cultural trends. They look at the question behind the trends. What are the un-met needs and un-answered questions in our culture that drives them to the latest reality tv show or movie?

Instead of another multi-million-dollar game show ripoff, some churches tapped into the deeper issue with series like How To Be Rich and Cantaloupe. Others saw the growing appetite for sexual immorality in today’s shows and crafted phenomenal series like Dream Sex, Leaving Lust Vegas, and one of my favorites, Satan’s Sex Ed. Series like Dream Job and You Don’t Have What It Takes tackle issues of self-worth and purpose in life.

The Questions Behind The Culture

If you’re part of the creative team that helps plan new series for your church and you’re still stuck in the rut of quick pop-culture knock-offs, don’t be discouraged. Instead, begin looking for the bigger issues driving today’s cultural trends. The best series answer the big questions that everyone is asking.

What sticks?

If you’re like me you’ve already had the opportunity to sit through hundreds of sermons throughout the years. Some stick with you while others have a short shelf-life.

What is the most memorable sermon or message series you’ve heard? Why did it stick with you?

** UPDATE: I’ve talked about this post with a couple of people and want to clarify a couple of things. I suppose without knowing me you could read the post above and think that I’m knocking the churches with the TV show sermons, which isn’t true. I’m a huge cheerleader for the local church, especially those that are small and don’t have the creative resources of larger churches. This post is about style and techniques. I feel there are better ways to come up with sermon series but I’m not in any way stating that God hasn’t used the other methods. This is a discussion of style, not an attack on any specific churches.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Blog Posts, Church, Culture, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Comments

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January 13, 2009

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1 Aaron Jackson said:

Pop Culture rip-offs abound, that’s for sure. I once heard of a series on sex called, “It’s Getting Hot In Here”… man, that one is hilarious!
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January 13, 2009

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2 Adam said:

Probably one of the most memorable sermon series I’ve listened to was “Plan B” by Pete from CrossPoint.

Basically it just talked about when YOUR Plan A didn’t happen.. God gives us a Plan B. We might not it’s better or easier.. but it’s His plan.

It just really resounded with Karen and I because of everything we are going through with Gavin. It’s not the life that we would have picked for him but it’s God’s Plan. And through this Plan B we have seen more of Christ and His love through anything that we could have ever wished for.
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January 13, 2009

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3 Double A-ron said:

I think I remember a series called “MySpace” at one point

While I do agree that some of these pop-culture ripoffs can be super LAME, some I have experienced have been very memorable. The “It’s getting hot in here” series still has stuck with me to this day. Maybe that’s because I had to listen to the song over and over again for a week working on the promo material. Or maybe it is because someone took something that was familiar and made it fit to what they were talking about. So many times pastors will use a pop-culture reference JUST for the sake of it being catchy. We shouldn’t try to fit a series around a title. It should be the other way around. Using pop-culture references as a way of explaining the deeper meaning of the sermon.

Double A-ron’s last blog post..Our night at Wings of Hope
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January 13, 2009

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4 BJ said:

Aaron, wherever did you hear of that one???? I seem to remember that one as well….Maybe it was someone we both know…..although it was actually a good title and series…….

BJ’s last blog post..What kind of “parker” are you?
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January 13, 2009

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5 Abbey said:

Gotta agree with Foster.
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January 13, 2009

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6 Shaun Groves said:

Nothing to do with this post at all. Very sorry. But, I just had to say, your blog looks freakin’ incredible. Great job.

I have design envy.

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January 14, 2009

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7 Scott Bettinger said:

I agree 100% with you Brad … and I’ll take it the next step further than you did and say that I think some of the larger, “more experienced” churches should know better by now, but they still continue to practice “lazy creativity.”

Thanks

- scott
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January 15, 2009

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8 Brad Peters said:

James MacDonald is guest preaching at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside right now. He’s phenomenal, not because he’s tapped into a “cathcy cultural hook” but because he’s just hammering the truth from God’s Word. The series is titled, “Turning your trials into gold” and is an exposition of six of the major passages that deal with trials and suffering.

God’s Truth, as is, doesn’t need an “extreme home makeover” or a “nip and tuck” to get the point across.

It’s refreshing when preachers don’t try to dress up in the name of “relevancy”. God’s word IS culturally relevant. Just preach it!

If you want to catch the video of his sermons on Wednesdays and Sundays, go to http://www.harvest.org

Brad Peters’s last blog post..We Have Only Our Bodies
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January 15, 2009

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9 Kassie said:

Maybe I’m confused…but how is the book you just reviewed not exactly what you’re talking about in this post? “Mad Church Disease” seems an awful lot like mad cow disease….which is sort of pop culture-y. Am I misinterpreting? Or is it that the pop culture twist is ok sometimes and not others?
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January 16, 2009

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10 Scott Bettinger said:

doh! … or what about this … http://twitpic.com/mjq3 … hey, we’ve had to do the same too … hold the resistance!