Service Planning Workshop

This past Friday I had the opportunity to spend the day with 38 church leaders from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Canada. We talked all day about planning and strategizing for weekend series, creating buzz and understanding our pop culture.

It is probably my favorite workshop to teach and is a real passion area of mine. I'd like to write another book on the topic in the near future and have been taking steps in that direction.

In the workshop on Friday was a pastor from Illinois who blogged throughout the day about what he was learning. One of his entries was regarding the choices churches make about what to do with pop culture. His notes:

The language of our time is pop culture.  Music and movies do more to influence and form the "faith" and values of people in our times more than any other source.

The church has to decide what to do with pop culture.  These are the choices Tim Stevens offered this morning.  Interact if you wish.

• You can ignore it, believing the church is a haven
• You can separate from it, believing the church is a rule generator
• You can condemn it, believing the church is a political force
• You can embrace it, being no different than the world
• You can leverage it, believing the church is to effectively communicate with people

A couple of people responded to his blog and an interesting dialogue started. Click on over to Rock Runner to enter the conversation.