The most difficult temptation to overcome in creativity is the idea that we must wait for inspiration. There is not a creative person on the planet that doesn't love the moments where an idea seemingly bursts out of nothing in the middle of the night. These inspirational moments are important, but they are not the norm.
[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]
Creating a sermon series brand that both communicates and intrigues churchgoers can be a very difficult process. An important part of the branding process is the point where you work through key details that need to be discussed in order to execute the series. In order to help our team discuss the branding, I put together a few different questions to help work through the details. There are certainly other important questions and discussions that may come up, but these questions help set up a framework for us to discuss some of the creative elements to our upcoming series.
1. Series Details
- What's the big idea?
- How long is the series?
- What are the topics and texts for the weekends?
- Who will be preaching?
- What dates will this take place?
2. Theming/Branding
- What should it be called?
- How should the series look and feel? (Eg: think of images, metaphors, movies, tv shows that have the "feel" we are looking for)
- What enviornments are we trying to create?
- What about pre-service music, lighting, and stage design?
3. Preaching Details
- What's a concise version of the messages?
- Are there any concepts that we could illustrate? (This is an opportunity to think of videos, props, pictures, etc.)
- How can this message beyond lived out beyond Sunday (The web, books, small groups, etc)
4. Music
- From the previous discussion, is there enough to work with for direction on weekends?
- Could any of this lead to series specific songs?
- Are there any songs that help communicate the ideas of the series?
5. The Deliverables
- What graphics need to be created and by when?
- What videos (bumpers, promotion videos) need to be created and by when?
- How are we promoting this series? When do these elements need to be finished?
What other questions might you ask? For a great example of how to brand a sermon series, check out Mars Hill Seattle's Battle Plan.
In 2011 I significantly increased the frequency of my blogging; I've taken a few days off over the Christmas weekend and am excited to continue sharing my thoughts and improving my writing over the next year. Here are my Top 10 posts of the past year. 10. How Not To Use Facebook
8. Martin Luther's View on Music
7. Mangering
5. 4 Questions To Ask Yourself When Writing a Sermon
2. 4 Ways to Use Google Voice in Youth Ministry
1. How To Use Google Voice To Send Mass Text
Which was your favorite post?
The Christmas story is a story about a king and full of kings who have opinions about this newborn king. We commonly sing about the Magi who visit Jesus as the "3 Kings" or "3 Wisemen." They come to visit Jesus with a set of unusual gifts. We also cannot forget the evil King Herod who seeks to kill the newborn baby Jesus. There's also a third king that we less often talk about, but is mentioned and that is Caesar, who rules even over Herod. The implications for the birth of Jesus, the newborn King, can be seen in the lives of these kings in the Christmas story. The kings force us to ask ourselves who do we worship... who is our king?
Caesar
When Luke writes the Christmas narrative he includes a small detail that highly influences the way we read about the social climate in which Jesus was born. In Luke 2:1 he writes, "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree..." Jesus was born during the time of Caesar Augustus, what implications does that have for us as we worship this baby? On an inscription of the decree of the Provinical Assembly of Asia it is written:
"The most divine Caesar...Augustus, whom being sent to us and our descendants as a Savior, has put an end to war and has set all things in order; and having become manifest, Caesar has fulfilled all the hopes of earlier times...in surpassing all the benefactors who preceded him..., and whereas, finally, the birthday of the god has been for the whole world the beginning of good news concerning him."
Jesus shows up on the scene and forces people to decide, do we worship Caesar Augustus or do we worship Jesus? Caesar, at the time of Jesus' birth is celebrated as a Savior whose birth is the beginning of good news...sound familiar? Jesus' birth directly opposes what is being pushed by Caesar; Jesus is forcing people to choose who do they worship. Who, or what, do you worship this Christmas?
Herod
King Herod is the ruler of the people of Israel and under the authority of the caesars. While Herod ruled as king, he ruled ruthlessly. He was a king who massacred thousands of jews, while also believing that he was divinely chosen to be the king of the people. He built altars and statues all over to worship Caesar, who claimed to be God. In a Jewish land following God, Herod built altars and statues to worship Caesar as God. Herod has given his life to ruthlessly ruling as king under the authority of Caesar and honoring him with all his decisions as King. Herod had monstrous power and used it to build projects that is beyond even most modern technology all to worship Caesar.
And then a baby is born.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magifrom the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” - Matthew 2:1-2
It is not shocking that Herod responds by trying to kill baby Jesus; it is exactly how he always responded to threats of his power. Suspicion led to the murder of his own family, ordering his wife to be killed and his sons to be murdered. It is not surprising that a baby being born who is called "King of the Jews" is a threat. Herod is forced to question, am I the king or is this baby the king?
Magi
The magi didn't worship Herod as king. They didn't worship Caesar as Lord. Instead they came to worship the baby Jesus as king and lord, and they worshipped him with three unusual gifts for a baby.
On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. - Matthew 2:11
Gold. A gift worthy of a king. A gift that would threaten all that Herod believed in. Frankincense, an incense. A gift that would symbolize Jesus role as our priest. And the most unusual gift of all for a baby, Myrrh. A gift that was often used for embalming when people die. A gift given because Jesus was born to die. Three gifts that all celebrate that there is something special about this baby; that he is a different kind of king than Herod and that the good news of Jesus is different than the good news of Caesar.
Three different kings. One that claims to be Lord. One that claims to be king. And a group that doesn't believe that the other two statements are true, but instead go to worship a baby. A baby that has been born and is a new King. A King who brings about a new Kingdom for all people. And a baby that has been born to be our Savior and to really bring the good news.
Photo Credit: Jordon
I've recently been spending some time with our worship planning team as we've discussed Christmas services and the upcoming calendar year. One of the tools that I've found indespinsible when it comes to discussing music for worship services is Spotify. I've had Spotify for several months, but it wasn't until recently that I've really found the full potential of what's possible.
Listen To Songs Without Buying Them
It's no big deal to buy a song for 99 cents, but when you are trying to discover new songs it's helpful to be able to listen to songs quickly without ever having to purchase them. 99 cents is not a lot of money, but multiply that over hundreds of songs and it adds up quickly. Spotify lets you search their huge library and listen to the song; plus if you have their premium account you can listen to all these songs on the go.
Get Suggestions From Others
One way that I've found Spotify helpful during planning is by utilizing the subscribe feature. What better way for people who cannot be in a meeting to have a voice into your planning then sharing a playlist? Song discovery is crucial to planning and also can also be very difficult. Suggestions from others is a huge assistant in the song discovery process.
Use Apps for Finding Lyrics
Spotify recently added the ability to install apps; I'm curious what the potential is for something like this is. Initially the best feature that I've found because of the apps is their integration with TuneWiki to allow for reading the lyrics of your current song. They don't have every song in their database yet, but I'm sure it will grow and continue to be useful.
Every year as we decorate the house to celebrate the Christmas season, we make sure to get our non-Christmas decoration out on the mantle. We put up our Christmas tree filled with ornaments, hang our stockings, put out the Christmas kitchen towels, and set the menorah up on the mantle. I'm not Jewish. I have never been Jewish, but I love to celebrate Hanukkah during the holiday season. Why? Simple, because Jesus celebrated Hanukkah.
What's Hanukkah all about?
While we all have probably heard of menorahs and playing with dreidels made out of clay, Hanukkah is a historically significant holiday in Jewish culture. Hanukkah is an eight day festival of light, which because of the Jewish calendar varies from year to year, but always falls relatively close to Christmas.
Thousands of years ago, even before Christ, the Holy Land was ruled by people trying to forcefully take over the people of Israel. The temple was taken over and the worship of the Jewish people was disrupted and Judaism was outlawed.
"The king being thereto disposed beforehand, complied with them, and came upon the Jews with a great army, and took their city by force, and slew a great multitude of those that favored Ptolemy, and sent out his soldiers to plunder them without mercy. He also spoiled the temple, and put a stop to the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation for three years and six months." - Josephus
A group of faithful Jews reclaimed the temple and rededicated it to God. When they went to light the temple's menorah, they found only a small amount of olive oil, only enough for a single days supply. Miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days. To commemorate this miracle, Jews would light the candles of the menorah nightly. Using the middle candle, the shamash, the other candles are lit and blessings are recited.
"Blessed are You, O Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded to us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah... Blessed are You, O Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who made miracles for our forefathers in those days at this time"
What does it have to do with Christmas?
What better time to celebrate a season like Hanukkah than during the Christmas season. Christmas is a time of great miracles. Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the light burning in the temple; Christmas celebrates the miracle of the light of the world being born. Hanukkah celebrates miracles. Christmas celebrates the greatest miracle of all; the God of the universe became flesh for us.
And in the midst of a Hanukkah celebration Jesus makes it clear who he is:
Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. - John 10:22-28
Jesus claims to be the promised Messiah. Jesus claims to be the "light of the world." Jesus claims to be the greatest miracle of all miracles.
If you want to be a better preacher, whether to students or adults, you need to not only be doing it yourself but also reading and listening to others who do it well. I am constantly downloading new sermons to listen to and always looking for new ones to get into my list of podcasts. This list is not based on the accuracy of their theology, but instead on their ability to communicate well. There are certainly some on the list that I would reccommend to anybody to listen to and others that I would be cautious about recommending to somebody if I'm unsure of there ability to listen critically.
A Few Preachers I'm Listening To:
Matt Chandler, The Village Church - Probably one the best preachers I have ever listened to.
Matt Popovits, CrossPoint Church - Great theology. Great preacher.
Andy Stanley, NorthPoint Church - The best when it comes to clear, simple communication.
Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church Seattle - Long sermons but does a great job at breaking books down verse by verse.
Rob Bell - Probably one of the best communicators around; I often disagree with his theology but he communicates well.
Francis Chan - I cannot listen to him preach without thinking "This guy really believes every word he is saying." I hope people feel that way when I teach.
Steven Furtick, Elevation Church - I enjoy seeing how he approaches the topics creatively.
Photo Credit: LifeWay
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Preaching is one of the most important things that happen in the life of a church. Preachers must regularly work on their craft. I love preaching. It is one of my favorite parts of being in youth ministry; every week, sometimes even more often, I get to spend time preparing and giving a message to teach our middle school students. Because I love it so much, I have found some things that seem to be helpful to me in improving my preaching.
4 Ways to Improve Preaching
Preach More. The best way to improve at anything is to get more practice. It's true of any athlete that wants to compete at a higher level; if you want to improve at your skill you need to get reps in. If you want to be a better preacher, whether it be on the preparation end or in the delivery, you need to find ways to preach often.
Read Scripture. We cannot be effective in our preaching if we are not studying the scripture. You might have enough Bible knowledge to get by without spending time personally in the word, but falling into this trap is a huge danger. Spend time in the scripture, not simply for the sake of finding things to preach on but for the sake of your own relationship with God.
Listen More. If you love to preach and want to get better, listen to great preachers. I regularly have a list of sermons that are downloading every week. Find a variety of styles and denominations; there is a lot to learn by finding different preachers that are effective in communicating.
Read Books. When you find a book or writer that you love, read all their books and the books that they reference. Reading books will allow you to continually be learning and building your library of potential ideas. It will also help you grow in your knowledge of what you are reading about. The key here though is that you need to find a way to not only read books, but remember what was in them. For me that means underlining and recording things in evernote.
Photo Credit: GWoods
My brother, Corey Grunewald, recently put together a Christmas EP project. If you're looking for some new folksy, indie arrangements of some classic Christmas songs, you should definitely give these a listen to.
As Christmas approaches, it will become more frequent that hear the recurring debate regarding the political correctness of the phrase "Merry Christmas." In the midst of fighting against replacing "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" there also seems to opposition to using abbreviations such as X-Mas or Xmas. Many people seemingly fear that abbreviating the word Christmas is simply another secular plan devised to remove Christ from Christmas.
"This is one of the most holy of the holidays, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. And for people to take Christ out of Christmas. They're happy to say merry Xmas. Let's just take Jesus out. And really, I think, a war against the name of Jesus Christ." - Franklin Graham
While I can certainly understand the fear and the confusion behind using the word X-Mas, history reveals that the word is not a scheme to remove Christ but something far from it. As far back as the year 1021, references can be seen of the word Χριστος (Greek for "Christ") being abbreviated using the letters X and XP. It still is not uncommon to see the Christian symbol called the Chi-Ro representing Christ. The Chi-Ro was not created to remove Christ from ancient literature or the body of Christ, but it was a symbol used to represent Christ to readers. In the same way, the usage of the letter X was not used as a way to remove Christ, but as shorthand that kept Christ present and was easy to write.
The meaning of Christmas is at risk
Christ is being taken out of Christmas. But it's not because people choose to say "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas." Christ is being taken out of Christmas more and more as people are worshipping something other than Jesus. We worship the holiday season. We worship gifts. We worship the lights and decorations. We worship our own holiday celebrations as Lord and not Jesus as Lord. The birth of Jesus in the first century radically challenged people to decide, do we worship Caesar or do we worship this baby? Herod gave his life to Caesar and therefore wanted to kill Jesus; the magi worshipped Jesus and saught to keep Christ safe. Who (or what) do you worship this Christmas season?
Photo Credit: Natalie Bulzan & LonePrimate
[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]
Branding the sermon series is the part that is one of my favorite parts of the series preparation. It is the part of the planning that we really begin to think about what images, words, and symbols will help make this series of messages memorable. What visuals will help not only make it memorable, but help communicate the message that we are trying to share. The branding stage is the stage that a sermon series begins to look like an actual usable sermon series. The branding is when the series gets a title and begins to be fleshed out into all the elements that make up a sermon series.
Branding is the "name, term, sign, symbol, or combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers." In the context of a sermon series, it's the name, terms, signs, symbols, or comibantion thereof to help church-goers identify the vision and message of a set of sermons and encourage them to listen.
Branding a sermon series might include:
- Title: What words are you going to use to identify the series?
- Graphics: What's the visual feel (colors, images, sermon slides, etc) that you are going to use to identify the series?
- Tagline: Is there a subtitle that helps further communicate your message?
- Staging: Can the brand recognition be enhanced by a certain stage set-up?
- Video: Is there video that you want to use as a part of the series brand? Is there a video bumper that helps lead into the sermon?
- Sermon Titles: Is there a way you want to tie your individual sermon titles into the actual series?
[The above list is an adaptation from Tentblogger's Introduction to Branding]
A quality brand has been seen to evoke great passion amongst followers. Apple, with their simple name, logo, and design have shaped the way their customers view their products. Not only do they successfully sell their products, but they turn customers into passionate evangelists of their brand. And Apple users don't just use Apple products, they brag about Apple products.
Don't expect sermon series branding to convert people. Your creativity abilities are not going to motivate somebody to get out of the pew and into the neighborhood. A creative title doesn't move a passive churchgoer into an active evangelist. That's the Spirit's job. But branding a sermon series will help create an important sermon series recognition. When a slide is shown, when a 30 second video clip appears, or when the title of a sermon series is spoken, the message and direction of a well-branded series will be recognized.
Photo Credit: Captcreate
NewSpring Church does some of the best testimony videos that I've ever seen. I think that one of the best things that we can do to help people realize the mission of the Church is by capturing the stories of our people whose lives are being changed and making those known. I've been following many of the videos produced by NewSpring in their "A Story" category and they all are phenomenal.
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There a lots of styles of music. Because of this when it comes to the corporate act of worship, we often take those labels and use them to describe the kind of worship that is happening. Contermporary worship, traditional worship, modern worship, blended worship, bluegrass worship, or a variety of other options. We likely even leave church services on Sunday discussing whether or not this week had "good worship." The oddity of these labels for worship is that the Bible never seems to label worship as contemporary or traditional and likewise good worship and bad worship.
The Two Kinds of Worship
There are only two kinds of worship. There are thousands of styles of music, but only two kinds of worship. There are thousands of strategies to the methodology of a corporate worship gathering, but there are only two kinds of worship. In the book of John there's an incredible account of a woman who engages Jesus in a theological discussion about the context of their worship. She is concerned because one group of people say that worship should happen on this mountain and another group of people say it should happen on another mountain.
"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” - John 4:23-24
For Jesus this conversation is not about what mode of worship is more "worshipful," it's about true worship and false worship. He makes it clear that the location of their worship doesn't dictate the object of their worship. True worship is in Spirit and in truth. And that can happen in any location. The same thought holds true for us today; worshippers must worship in Spirit and in truth. We can worship with all kinds of instruments or no instruments, but what really matters is whether or not this is true worship or false worship. We can worship in a variety of different styles, but are we worshipping in spirit and in truth?
What is the object of your worship? The object of your worship will reveal a lot about whether your worship is in Spirit and in truth or something entirely different. Do you worship a particular musical style? Can you only worship if there are certain instruments? Do you worship a feeling you get in the moments where the music is most passionate?
Or do you worship the crucified and risen Christ? Even on the days when you don't like the song choices. Even when you find yourself at a place that does music outside of your traidtion. Even on the days when you have no desire to be present; do you worship? True worship is not determined by the appearance of our actions but by the object of our affections. Do you worship in Spirit and in truth?
Spirit & Truth
"His worshippers must worship in Spirit and in truth." This is not a statement about location. This is not a statement about music. This is a statement about worship; all-of-life worship. God is Spirit; so as we worship in Spirit, we are worshipping in God. The only reason we can engage in worship is because of what Christ did for us on the cross. Worshipping in spirit, means that by the power of the Spirit alone we can approach God with confidence and respond to his death and ressurection.
The second half of the statment, "worshpping in truth," seems to be more black and white; as we worship are we speaking and living the truth? God speaks his truth to us in the scriptures, so does all we say and do line up with what God has told us to be true. When our choices are contrary to God's word, we aren't worshippng. When our words aren't biblical, we aren't worshipping. If what we are doing is done in truth, we are worshipping. The only thing that cannot be done as an act or worship is sin - because sin does not line up with the truth of scripture.
Photo Credit: camknows