Reinventing Church
I love reading about the way different enterprises are reinventing themselves. It helps me think about ministry in new ways. One of the ways I try to remain an open-system is by staying on top of the sea change.
About a year ago, I blogged about the evolution of the restaurant industry and juxtaposed it with preaching. Here's a link: Sermon Salt.
Read an article in Motto magazine about wedding photography that made me think. The article focused on a photographer who has "created a cool niche in a tired industry." Matt Hagen approaches the wedding like a photojournalist. So instead of the stitled poses, he takes an editorial slant and tries to capture the spontaneity and candidness.
Hagen says, "It's those spontaneous and even ridiculous moments that everyone remembers best, so why shouldn't the photos be centered around that? I want to tell the story of the day as it really hapepned."
Just made me think. I think spontaneity and candidness is precisely what's missing from most church experiences--NCC included. I've always wanted to make church, especially in our coffeehouse, more interactive. We've thought about Q & A. I think it'd be cool to have people email questions during a message and respond to them afterwards.
What would happen if we set up our services more like a talk show? Or a town hall meeting. Or the View?
Just thinking out loud.
What I know for sure is this: there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet!
About a year ago, I blogged about the evolution of the restaurant industry and juxtaposed it with preaching. Here's a link: Sermon Salt.
Read an article in Motto magazine about wedding photography that made me think. The article focused on a photographer who has "created a cool niche in a tired industry." Matt Hagen approaches the wedding like a photojournalist. So instead of the stitled poses, he takes an editorial slant and tries to capture the spontaneity and candidness.
Hagen says, "It's those spontaneous and even ridiculous moments that everyone remembers best, so why shouldn't the photos be centered around that? I want to tell the story of the day as it really hapepned."
Just made me think. I think spontaneity and candidness is precisely what's missing from most church experiences--NCC included. I've always wanted to make church, especially in our coffeehouse, more interactive. We've thought about Q & A. I think it'd be cool to have people email questions during a message and respond to them afterwards.
What would happen if we set up our services more like a talk show? Or a town hall meeting. Or the View?
Just thinking out loud.
What I know for sure is this: there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet!
7 Comments:
Mark,
I've wondered this myself. What if it was Q&A or The View, etc style? There would have to be something to keep it orderly, maybe the questions e-mailed or handed to moderators in the aisles, etc might work.
I remember in college studying learning styles and we talked at length about how lecture format is the least effective way to teach. Hands-on immersion is the most effective. So what if you taught for a few and then had people in groups to discuss or opened up for questions occasionally?
It would be an interesting research project for a DMin or something like that!
Thanks for stimulating my brain!
Hey Mark-
Great ideas. I really love the idea of having people email in.
Just recently we did a series on prayer and asked people to text message me during the service and sermon. I then was able to integrate their questions into the sermon in real time. Those I didn't get to, I blogged out or podcasted about later. It worked really well.
Hey, Pastor Mark. Sounds like cool idea. Just don't invite Rosie to take questions!
In a different vein to these previous comments.... what was the photographers name?? Tried to find the article online but cant, would like to check out the photographer though...
I was at the community pool today with my kids and saw a family that no longer goes to our church. Key words: no longer. They said the church got too big for them. Made me sad they left but made me happy the reconnected somewhere else.
This post made me think about how so many perception issues in the church could be changed if there were more opportunities for the Body to be the Body and engage in the process in some more fluid way. Often people just want to be heard.
Where there is a void, negativity will fill it.
I attended a conference from some Acts 29 guys from Soma Community and they do their teaching in an interactive format. You can listen to it if you want at http://tacoma.somacommunities.org/listen/
We are a new church plant in Estonia and trying to include some format like that and have used talk shows and sometimes they feel a little boring, but people seem to remember so much more on those days than a traditional sermon.
Hey we do an interactive church night once a month where people sit round in tables with coffee and pringles and nice snacky foods and everyone gets the chance to write questions down then we randomly pull them out and instead of a preach we read the question get the tables to discuss it for 3 minutes then we discuss it on the platform. It has worked amazingly well.
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