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Humor can be a great way to communicate an important message or point in church, and knowing that laughter helps people relax so they are more open to the gospel makes its strategic use even more important.

Learning what makes something funny helps us in choosing the right content that will work in a church setting. Take a look at the video below and then I’ll share some of the things we can learn from it below.

Here are some of the things I noticed in the video. This same process can also be used when evaluating a video to use in church:

• The point: One of the most successful automotive companies in the world (Mercedes Benz) is using humor to communicate that their cars are both beautiful, and smart.
• The character: This video would be just as funny (maybe more so) if it was a guy, but the ‘blonde’ connection helped the video go viral (get passed around).
• Contrast: Notice the ‘contrast’ between the blonde and the librarian. How many ‘contrast points’ do you see? Contrast helps those in the audience (in church or online) notice the main character more.
• The look-around: The dialog stops, and the main character looks around and realizes (supposedly) that she is in a library. The books and people in the background are used to ‘establish’ where she is (a library).
• The surprise: After looking around she still does not know where she is (in classic blonde style:)
• The whisper: The volume of her dialog at the start of the video was louder than normal, now its softer than normal. This is another way that contrast is created, plus it reinforces that she is in the library, and drives home once again – that the main character is blonde :)

Humor is a GREAT for communicating important messages. But beware: Just because its funny to you does not mean it will be funny to others, so like the video above, use the power of familiarity, contrast, and a smart script to help people stay tuned in and get the point.

Those of us who are communicators in the church can learn lots about effective communication simply by ‘observing’ what is working in our culture today.

When I dream in the color of vision about Studio Church , the unique new church we are planting, I dream of a church that is different. Our goal is not to be different to be cool or standoutish, but so that we can reach not yet reached people with God’s amazing grace and love.

To reach the massive amount of people in our community that attend no church on Sunday, the Church must try different things. The same, repeated, with minor adjustments, just won’t accomplish our Matthew 28 mission. Like a teenager that has tuned-out the constant hum of his parents, many in our culture have tuned out the ever-similar-repeated message of the Church.

Many in our fraternity say they are different, but few truly are. With unbecoming accuracy we can predict what most churches will be like -before we ever go.

Youngme Moon of the Harvard Business School collaborated with XPLANE to create the following video introducing her new book, DIFFERENT. In it she punctuates the meaning of business differentiation. The interesting thing about this amazing video is that we could easily substitute the word “business” with the word “church.” Take a moment out from the norm and watch the video to be reminded of the need for fresh new ideas in the Church that have the potential to puncture the tough membrane of our culture, and reach hearts not yet reached with the love of Jesus.

How do you feel the Church should be different to reach the not yet reached?

Here’s Perry Noble talking about serving people outside of the church as only Perry Noble can. *Warning: If you don’t want to be in your face challenged, you may want to pass on this one.

• Teach people to read their Bibles…to discover the reality of Hebrews 4:12, the LIVING/ACTIVE Word of God.  A person who learns to hear the voice of God through the lens of Scripture is UNSTOPPABLE!
• Challenge the church to take care of “one another” instead of hiring professionals to do it all!
• Treat people outside of the church like they have a heart and soul…for example, being incredible kind to the server at the restaurant, DESPITE the “service” that they give.  They might have had the roughest day of their life…and the last thing they need is someone wearing a Christian t-shirt and has a fish on their car being a complete b-hole to them because their water glass wasn’t filled!
• SERVE the world we live in rather than screaming at it.  (The stupidity of some people in the church who believe lost people should act like Christians still blows my mind!)
• Stop looking down on others who commit “those sins” and realize that, were it not for the grace of God that we would be the very people we criticize!
• Repent of our own sins before we call out the sins in others!
• STOP trying to isolate ourselves from the world that God was so desperate for that He sent His Son to LIVE HERE for 33 years and then gave His life for it!
• Stop trying to win God’s approval through legalistic effort and walk in the incredible grace that HE gives us in Christ.

The world can try to deny Christ and Christianity all day long…but when a church gets on fire because the people are on fire and we actually do and become what Jesus has called us to do and become…I believe we’ll see an outpouring of God’s favor and anointing like NEVER before.

What can be the difference between having active listeners or passive listeners in your church? Testimonies. Nothing holds attention in church better than a real life story.

The Apostle Paul spoke about the value of  sharing our faith stories to encourage one another in Romans 1:12.  What was true in Paul’s day remains true today – sharing testimonies of what God is doing in people’s lives is very important.

Some years ago my bride and I heard a short real-life testimony in a church service. Later that night we made an interesting discovery. We remembered the testimony we had heard that morning at church, but not the sermon. That’s where I learned:  The better we can engage our audience, the better we will hold their attention, the more they will learn, and the faster they will grow. At Studio we call this our ELG strategy. Engage=Learn=Grow.

Benefits of using testimonies in your church service:

• Testimonies help evangelize. I believe the sharing of testimonies is one of the most underutilized evangelism tools in the church today. The technology to capture and tell stories is now available to all. Inexpensive video cameras and computers with basic video editing software are now the norm.
• Testimonies cast the vision of your church. When people share their story they are also sharing about their church -your church! Positive things about your church will come out as a person shares their story and we all know it’s better for someone in the congregation to toot the church horn rather than the leaders.
• Testimonies help your people  know they are not alone. When we here the stories of others we realize they also have challenges and that we do not have to share our burdens alone.
• Testimonies inspire action. Hearing the testimonies of others and how they overcame their obstacles inspires others to keep going and not give up.
• Testimonies expand the faith of those in your church. When our people learn about what others have accomplished it lifts the vision they have for their own life.

Using stories in our church service not only helps to hold attention, but it also communicates God’s amazing grace and love found in Jesus. If you’re not sure how to get started using testimonies in your church, get in touch!

The plane was crowded and as God would have it my only seat choice was to sit between two big guys who were headed to a jazz festival in New Orleans.

As soon as my hiney hit the seat John on my left ordered two double vodkas, and Steve on my right ordered two double bourbons.  I wish I could say that the first thing that popped into my mind was “All right! Here’s a great opportunity to share the love of Jesus!” Nope. Not even close. Here is what I actually thought: “Oh dear God. Why did you sit me here!” Outreach FAIL big time.

As the plane, John, and Steve flew higher God reminded me of several important things:

1. God loves everyone, no matter their condition. Jesus proved this over and over and did not prequalify whether someone could follow him based on their past – or present – condition. If they were willing to listen that was enough.

2. All humans have an interest in spiritual and eternal matters. Even as alcohol and altitude increased, I found that these guys had a genuine interest in the things of God.

3. Being drunk does not close the heart. I knew it was only a matter of time before the #1 favorite pastor question of all time while flying was asked. “So what do you do?” John asked. “I’m a pastor that’s planting a new church in Nashville” I said.  After a brief (and expected) moment of stunned silence both John & Steve continued talking, but the course of the conversation changed. Now we talked about spiritual matters and I had a wonderful opportunity to share my testimony and how Jesus literally saved my life.

4. Sometimes Good Samaritans help drunks not fall down.  By the time we landed these precious men that God loves so much were sloshed!  So much so that one was off balance and stumbling as we disembarked the plane.  The fact that they were drunk as a skunk is not the point – the fact that Jesus loves them is. So I helped them not fall down.

I’d like to say both of these dear men embraced Jesus during our high flying adventure but to my knowledge they did not, yet. They did however meet a Christian that loved them in spite of their condition. My willingness to not judge, listen, and love may one day play a small part in their decision to say “yes” to God’s amazing grace and love found in Jesus. Plus, I made two new friends named John & Steve.

The other day I had this pop into my head:

Why do the things we want the most take so long to achieve?
Because we are the most valuable to God when we are hungry.

Why is hunger important? Because hunger creates.

Hunger creates:

• movement
• motion
• motivation
• action
• determination
• a reason to be
• anger
• a different view of our world
• new/re-newed vision
• fedupness
• I’ve had enoughness
• time to get off my buttness (*thanks Jason!)

Hunger creates…

That’s why hunger is important to God – the Church – and to us.

Comments?

God has been dealing with me in a BIG way lately. I feel like he is calling me out, taunting me to just go ahead and make his day. He’s challenging me to step into the ring. Have you ever held on to something so important, so near and dear to your heart, that you dared not share it lest people would not understand? Well I have and God has been challenging me to step out and share it. Along the way I’ve shared bits and pieces here and there, but never the whole enchilada. So here goes:

“We are starting America’s first media church.” Our services will be media driven and we will use no sermons. Studio will not do sermons and add a little media to it, but use media 100% of the time.  Okay, I said it. Now it’s out there in internet land for the whole world to see. And because of that, we gotta do it. Actually, we are already on our way to doing it. The vision for this church started rising up within me like a rush of love way back when I was media director for a large church in Colorado (dang I miss those rocky mountains)!  There I observed the difference between how people learned and responded when media was used to communicate verses telling, talking, or typing. To put it mildly, I was smitten with the media bug. Let’s just say that whole experience sealed in concrete the direction and course my life would take. I am very glad that I did not know then how long it would take, or how hard it would be to actually do it.

That’s The What - Here’s The Why
The language that our culture uses is changing, and because of that there is an ever-widening communication gap between those in the church, and those outside of the church. Consider: 70% of people in our communities now choose not to attend any church on Sunday. 70%!! We believe one of the main reasons for this is that we (the church) do not communicate in a way that they can relate to. It almost sounds too simple to be true, but consider this…

TWO BILLION videos are viewed each month on the internet in the United States and that number is growing every month. I wish I had some way to visually illustrate 2 billion… but let’s just say that is a HUGE number. Digital media is literally taking over the world and the result is the way people learn and communicate is changing.  Their internal receiver is being re-programmed to process information differently. I recently read somewhere the following quote: “Our culture is going through one of the most transformative communication revolutions in our lifetime and the use of media is at its core.”  I would add that as the church we can either embrace this revolution and make history, or stick to the status quo and become history.

I have observed (respectfully so) that most church services use little to no media and are designed for people that already know Christ, not for those that don’t. And that’s okay because these churches are the front lines doing the work of ministry. But what about those not being reached? The 70%? We must try new things to reach these people. At Studio we have made it our mission to dream about different ways that we might engage and reach our changing culture. That’s why we’re going all out – laying it all on the line – in order to reach the not yet reached.

Want to be part? Click HERE for more info.

QUESTION: What do YOU feel we can do to introduce God’s amazing grace and love to the 70%?

When it comes to reaching the contemporary heart of those that attend our churches our approach probably should be more like YouTube and less like a phonebook.  Kem Meyer posted the Indexed card below which made me think of how phonebooks can help us learn about and reach our culture. Here’s what Kem said about her phonebooks: “I got three new phone books, each weighing 7-10 pounds, dropped at my doorstep this week. I picked each one up and promptly deposited them right in the trash.” I have done the same thing, and I bet many of you have as well.

Heavy printed phone books represent more than telephone numbers and ads. They represent the past, communication forms that used to work the best, and a dog-eared determination to hang on to the past no matter what.

I can’t help but draw a few comparisons to the way today’s church does outreach and communicates the world’s most important message from the 7 pound phone book:

• Media vs. Lecture – As the way our culture communicates changes in drastic ways (2 ‘billion’ YouTube video views a month in the U.S.), the way we communicate in church has remained pretty much the same. Most church services still use lecture based sermons that average 30+ minutes in length. As a pastor who has preached many of these types of sermons, I totally get all of the reasons they are used. But here’s the deal (and what keeps me up at night). There is a reason why 80% of people believe in God and yet 70% of the people in our community choose every week not to attend a church. Can you say “communication gap?” People will not go to the trouble to attend a church if they cannot relate to how we communicate at that church. If I was honest enough to say to my unchurched neighbor, “Would you like to come to a lecture with me Sunday?” their answer would be pretty predictable.
• Past vs. Present – The whole world knows-pretty much at the same time-what is happening in the world, and so it’s not hard to figure out what the people that attend our church services are thinking about on any given week. As someone wisely said about preaching, “Figure out what people are already thinking about and preach on that.”  Example: Michael Jackson died on a Thursday, but how many churches spoke about that on Sunday? That global event, much like 9/11, softened hearts all over the world like few things have, and may have represented the church’s best shot at reaching the not yet reached in a long time. News and life happens fast, and the church must adapt the way it communicates in order to reach today’s culture.
• Acquaintance vs. Good Friend (Visitor vs. Regular Attendee) – Creating a drop in casual experience is more important than ever in today’s culture. Consumers (which we all are) want to check things out before they commit. When it comes to reaching the70% it’s important that we create a casual starting point that leads to Christ.

I know some will argue that phonebooks still have a use in today’s contemporary society. I agree. Two are holding down a stack of papers in my home right now.

QUESTION: What do YOU think? What ideas do you have on how the church could better communicate and reach today’s contemporary culture?

Our family has grown up inserting WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) into all sorts of situations and have always tried to run our decisions through the filter of God’s Word.  Now we’re up to our eyelids in dreaming, learning, and strategizing how to reach our community through a new church we are planting.

The crazy thing is that our culture is changing and the target is moving. People are choosing not to attend church in greater numbers every year. Bests estimates say that in our area (greater Nashville, TN) the number of people choosing not to attend church on Sunday is approaching 70%. 70%!! Every time I say that number it sends an arrow through my heart. I find myself asking over and over not only how can that be, but what the heck are we going to do about it?

Back to Jack. My wife loves the show 24. Maybe love is not the right way to say it. My wife is totally addicted to 24 and needs help! She is a genuine 24 nut, and each week I choose to be her companion nut and watch it too.

The other day I had an interesting thought. If Jack Bauer was given the assignment to reach the 70% of people in our community who attend no church, WWJD (What Would Jack Do)?

Here’s what I think.

Jack would:

• Go after those far from God with a zeal and passion.
• Live life like time was very short.
• Try different ways to reach these dear people, and when one way didn’t work, he would try another.
• Not listen to his critics, even a little.
• Ask people over and over to step up and do really hard stuff.
• Say “thank you” a lot.
• Do more. Discuss less.
• Say “fine” a lot.
• Bounce back quickly.
• Keep his sights on the main target and his eyes on the goal.
• Not let someone who bailed stop forward progress. He would learn, adjust, and keep moving.
• Never sit down to eat or go to the bathroom.

Okay maybe the last one is a stretch, but if we are going to reach people who don’t yet care, maybe asking what would Jack do is not such a bad idea.

Question: What do you think?  What would it take to get people who don’t care about attending church on Sunday to attend?