Right? How fun would that have been? I can’t believe they let all that in there. They even posed for pictures with Darth Vadar. Can you imagine ordering a pizza and having it delivered with the employee response of “cool.”

They were just glad he was there and enjoying the experience of Apple and to interact with their product.

That got me thinking.

How many of us walk into church and see:
“Please no food or drink in the sanctuary”. (unless you’re the pastor, we know you have to have your beverage)
Or have to be dressed a certain way.
Or be careful to sit in the right section.
Don’t dream about coming in hungover.
Be sure to leave your drug addicted college drop out son at home (that’s what we have a podcast for).
Oh and your lesbian lover…best sit in different rows.
And BTW, your kid is making too much noise.

What are we most concerned with? Our beautiful building, our religious appearance, pretending to have it all together, and our seamless production? Or could we take a cue from Apple and focus on people and being sure they find a way to experience Christ in His fullest?

I just think sometimes we really take ourselves so seriously. I’m not talking about taking the presences of the Lord too seriously, I’m talking about taking too seriously those things we create. I wonder what would happen if we pushed those things down to the bottom more and put people and Christ first more often.

And can we stop pretending to be perfect? Yes, we’re forgiven. Yes, we are redeemed. And I understand you’ve never swore. But aren’t we all still working it all out? Sanctuary is supposed to mean a safe place of refuge, not just the place where you do church. What would happen if we let people come in just as they are, looking for answers, searching for direction. Messy? Probably. But maybe it’s not our job to clean it all up. Maybe, it’s best to leave that to our Creator?

Take sermon branding and print design as two examples:

Sermon branding is all about Sunday morning. Right? Well yes, but not really. Sermon branding is powerful not simply because it makes for a great service but so that it is communicated in a way that sticks.

“But isn’t print material all about getting seats in the butt?” Well, sometimes but it doesn’t stop there…at least it better not. Church isn’t about butts in the seats, but we have to have butts in the seats to teach, recharge, minister, etc. Then the Church can go do what we are designed to do.

So that’s some of the WHY of Holy Cow! Creative. Know anyone we can help?

Father’s Day seems to be a tough service for many churches, all the one hit wonders are. How do you make a big bang with one service, no momentum, etc.

Here’s an idea:

Taking Care of Dad

The message isn’t so much to Dad, but more to Mom and the kids about Dad and about the need to support the family leader, etc. There’s a lot of pressure being a dad, and we’re often wired to not let it show…mom and the kids would do well to take care of dad sometimes as he so often is taking care of you. Think of it this way, if Dad spends his time providing for his family’s wants and needs who is taking care of his?

The big idea: Setup a bunch of lazyboys and select dads to sit in the chairs for the service, fully equipped with pop and chips (yep there will be crumbs, that’s why the vacuum was created).

Thought I’d pass it along. In fact, for the first church to commit to doing this all the way we’ll do the sermon branding for free.

A house divided will not stand.
– Abraham Lincoln

I’m already hearing the rumbling. Many within the church are not happy with the results of the election. I’ve heard things like:

“God has taken his hand off of the US”
“McCain was God’s choice and we didn’t listen”
“Evil will reign”

What’s your response going to be? Before you answer…a few reminders:

1. Obama won in a big way. Both in electoral and popular vote. That means that many within your church body voted for Obama.
2. Those outside the church are still watching. When we curse the election results, what does that say?
3. When you called McCain “God’s choice” and then he loses…you make God much smaller than he really is.

and most importantly…

4. God is still in control. HE is our king.

I am going to suggest that we follow Michael Hyatt’s example and make the right response.

1. I will pray for him and our country.

2. I will assume his motives are good, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

3. I will not speak ill of him, even if I don’t always agree with him.

4. I will cast off the spirit of cynicism, and be a positive force for good.

and you might add a fifth:

5. I will remember that not everyone sees things the way I do. I will remember that many voted for Obama and are happy about the results.

I also encourage many of you to address this on Sunday morning. I’m not a fan of supporting candidates from the pulpit, though I’m certain many pastors did in the last few months (even if you pretended not to.) Great communicators will continue that conversation, don’t leave it hanging.

You encouraged those in the church, your friends, your family to pray and then vote…now you need to trust that God hears ALL your prayers and answers every single one…even if it’s not the answer you’re looking for.

Don’t allow for bitterness or despair to creep into your church body…it will destroy it. Instead proclaim God’s victory in all things. Set the tone.

And folks, let’s face it…something did need to be done. And none of our options were so great…and to put our faith in a politician…well come on, we know better than that.

Oh, and more thing…he really did have a killer logo, especially for politics.

While it means in a large part for us at Holy Cow Creative that we want to help change the way the church communicates…it goes deeper than that too. I believe too often when I say church, you think Sunday, but shouldn’t that only be a part of the picture?

Does church require preaching?

What would happen if tomorrow morning you got up and told your people that there would be no worship, no preaching…instead you were all going out to serve your community for that same time slot.

What if Sunday wasn’t the end of your week, what if it was the beginning and church on Sunday was all about equipping you to be the church on Monday and Tuesday…a bit of a pick me up on Wednesday…you get the idea. What would happen? Is that church?

Your turn.

What are the issues you want to talk about?

What do you struggle with?

Here’s a glimpse at some of it:

• Sermon graphics vs. Sermon branding
• Why literal is boring
• How to be inspired not a ripoff artist
• 7 ways to look at a sermon
• How a child’s attachment to his teddy bear relates to sermon branding
• Ammunition for the creative in the church

Now it’s your turn. What do church communicators need to know about being a part of the Sunday morning message? Go ahead…hit reply.

The church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it’s a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. The church expected hundreds of teenagers from as far away as Canada.

I was seriously expecting, hoping, that the link would take me to the onion…but this is a real honest promotion.

Church marketing MUST be about more than getting butts in the seat, it’s about more than a gimmick or attracting attention…it MUST be about life change. Go ahead and give your iPods away, serve free coffee and donuts, but be about more than the number of people that walk through your doors. Be about the number of lives that are shaped and molded by God.

And for the love of all of sanity…use your head. When you as a church do something like this, you cast a cloud over many churches.

All very popular questions…and certainly something easily measured. While these measurements have some value I agree with Scoble and Seth, it’s the who and more importantly, the what, that really matters.

Yes, you need butts in the seats on a Sunday morning and we want to help you do that. Without people in church you can’t do the really important stuff. So start with the “how many” question…but quickly move to:

Who are attending? Are you simply taking people from another church? Is your Easter production filled with people that have never heard the story or people that are fulfilling a holiday tradition? Do they all look like you, or do they look like the girl that works at strip join on Friday night? Are you reaching the people that need to know, that have never heard of the hope that is in Christ?

What are they doing?Do they come in, sing a few songs and go home or is there real life change? Do they walk straight to “their” seat or do they interact with those around them? Do they end up at the altar or do they just pat you on the back and say ‘good sermon’? The most popular church activity should be change.

I’ve said it before, if their aren’t stories of God’s transformation then it doesn’t matter how many people show up or how amazing the graphics are…it’s a failure.

So that’s your new church ROI: How many lives were changed.

What do you think God could accomplish through a unified church? What if we stopped talking about Jesus and instead displayed His love through a unified and global biblical community?

Thanks to Mark for pointing out a great effort meant to unify the Church and plant churches in Cambodia, India, Sudan and China. For four weeks Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, AoG, churches from all denominations will unite with a similar voice, with a unified message, with their own flavor and gather in His name to make a difference.

It’s refreshing to see the Church come together and link arms. I can’t help but to wonder what would happen if churches within a 100 mile radius of each other united to reach the lost within their own communities?

I can’t help but to wonder why it takes an effort for the church to work together to reach people.

Check out One Prayer for more information and the amazing list (currently at 1,233) at OnePrayer.

• Focus Audience: who are we trying to reach?
• Forum: where can we reach all of them at once?
• Issue: why are we talking to them?
• Accelerators: what helps?
• Barriers: what hurts?
• Hook: how do we ignite their passion?

Notice that she doesn’t start with what it looks like or what style is used. Those are needed things, if it isn’t beautiful people will ignore it. We should be communicating with amazing visuals and those visuals should rest on the foundation of a clear and moving message.

And I’ll add a seventh:

• Proof: what is the story of change?

I add the seventh because often we stop just short of truly effective ministry. It’s not enough to move people emotionally. It’s one thing to move people on a Sunday morning, they may even make the trip to the altar. But as hard as they may have thought it was to walk to that altar, the real challenge is carrying it out in our daily lives. We need to craft our messages and our responses to be those of change. Please continue to bring people to the altar, but don’t forget to send them into the world.