Just for Fun

Here’s one of my favorite pics of Elijah (taken at Great Wolf Lodge outside Cincinnati this past December):

EC – “Creative Communication” [Mark Batterson]

EC = Exponential Conference.  I’m passing on some things that stuck with me from a few of the sessions I attended at the conference.  This first post is on the pre-conference intensive I attended on “creative communication” by Mark Batterson.  Mark is pastor of National Community Church in the DC metro area (4 locations:  3 theaters & 1 coffeehouse, which is a converted crack-house they bought…)  These thoughts are meandering, as was the intensive:

1. don’t overpromise and underdeliver
2. everything says something about everything (aesthetics, etc.)
3. coffeehouses are postmodern wells
4. find ways to do church in the marketplace
5. the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing  (I’m still thinking this through in light of Alan Hirsch’s thoughts on the effects of consumer culture on the Western church.  I see both sides…)
6. do internal marketing, not just external marketing
7. consider your blog digital discipleship
8. you must turn attenders into inviters
9. church is a tag-team sport (I tag you to go invite someone in; you tag me to deliver a message when they come, etc.)
10. 60% of Americans get their theology from movies and music

And…Seven Steps to Sermon Branding

1. choose a series title (every “ology” connects to theology, so read widely across many disciplines.  This will allow you to present the message in ways that connect in our world)
2. create a series graphic (do it well.  Dorothy Sayers, “there were likely no crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers coming out of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth.”  I.e., create with excellence)
3. design a series e-vite and invite.
4. brainstorm big ideas (the reason you can lay down on a bed of nails is b/c there are so many points that none of them penetrate.  Find the one big idea and hammer it home)
5. shoot a series trailer (there are 2 ways to get behind people’s defense mechanisms:  laughter and story)
6. add sermon props
7. add sermon staging

I appreciate the creativity and risk-taking of NCC.  They’re reaching many people.  I especially like the idea of doing/being the church out in the community.  The “third place” created by the coffeeshop is great, too.