Thats My King Remix

My new friend BARTON is pretty amazing. He creates stuff that will blow you away. Here is an example:

Check out his site, or IGNITERMEDIA for more of his dope-ness. Buy some of these products and support great art in the church.

Friday is the day

On friday I will announce who won the free ticket to Catalyst West. Don’t forget, you have to pay your way out there, but you will experience an AMAZING event! Email me here: b@stephenbrewster.me

There is a for sure leader right now, do you have what it takes to knock him/her off the top? Lets go people!

Translation of Interpretation

2 weeks ago I got to check out Gateway Church. Really amazing. Robert Morris may be one of the best communicators I have heard. I have an entire blog about his sermon, however, I just finally got my mind around one of his thoughts.

Translation vs Interpretation.

When something is translated it is word for word redelivered.

When you Interpret something you put the meaning and the context behind the item being delivered.

The United Nations does not have translators, they have interpreters. Lets be glad they do so that we dont get only half of the meaning of another language or culture when it comes to world affairs.

Unfortunately, at times as Christians, we have become translators of the “Christian Life” as opposed to interpreters. Furthermore, we follow translators and not interpreters. If we are going to impact the world, we have to interpret the love, grace, and mercy of God as opposed to trying to just translate it, because we tend to be really bad translators. Sometimes there are thoughts, or words that can not be translated, only interpreted. Often times we allow the manipulation of translation to effect the impact of interpretation.

LoveLockDown

Jackie and I were driving to church on Sunday listening to the 20 on 20. Love Lock Down came on and of course Ashlyn asked if we could turn it up. She has good taste even at 5.

Jackie looks over and says, imagine if a church did a series about Love being Locked down. A series on Love from the church. i LOVE the idea. What do you think…theme a series around LOVE and Love being locked down… Everything from locking in with people, spreading love, showing love, expressing love, embracing love….let love lock you down…

We all wanna be loved…

Had an idea for a sermon series. I have not heard of anyone digging into this sector yet. Online dating/matchmaking is taking over. You put in information about yourself, and then you end up being paired with someone of equal interests. This is not just for Jerry Springer fans anymore. “I met him/her on the internet” is no longer an instant divorce sentence. What if we created a series around the concept of eHarmony. Your needs, your life, your desires, your wants, your interests and how they intersect the God of all creation. Just a thought. Have a great Monday, mine has been a meeting mess already…YIKES.

Your message vs your method

An airport in berlin had a job opening for air traffic controllers. Great job. One of the requirements, you have to have 20/20 vision. They also want you to know that the application for the job is available in braille. You can read the story here.

SO, somewhere along the line, the method of communicating, the history, how they have done it before, got in the way of the message and the job. Someone should have caught this, really.

You spend so much time developing your message. You know what you want to say, how you want to say it, what props and tools you will use to drive home your point. But what happens when you realize that your methods are outdated? What do you do when you figure out that the questions you are answering are not the questions people are asking? What on earth are you going to do when people cash in on the personality because they are not growing?

Ask the right questions to the right audience a the right time. As much time as you spend on crafting what you are saying, test it to make sure it passes through a filter of relevance to the lives of those who will digest the material.

Create your own distribution

The team is all over the place. Jay is across the pond working it out for us, and Chris and I are in NYC. We are staying in Times Square. I LOVE NY. Like REALLY love it. I told jackie that when the kids move out, we are going to have to move here for at least a year. You just meet so many different people. There is not a bigger canvas for prayer in the world than NY. If you feel you are an agent of hope, come here, cuz these people are looking for some hope.
Yesterday we met with TuneCore. If you want to sell your audio (sermons, music, speeches, etc) TuneCore is the way to go. They can get you anywhere you need or want to be. They are the premiere firm for distributing to all the major online stores. They make it cheap and easy.
Now it is your job to philosophically wrestle with if you are to sell your “goods” or not. To my pastor friends, I say no, but thats on you. Free is the new .99 cents.
Also had dinner with some of our Sony team last night.
Back at it this morning, then headed home tonight. This was a quick trip.

FRESH!

EVERY time you do something, you should want to be the best at that thing. I believe it SO much. I don’t buy the excuses that follow: 1. we dont have the staff. 2. we dont have the money. 3. we dont have the resources. BLAH BLAH BLAH! You have talent. Creativity. You have technology that evens out the playing field in a big big way. Do things RIGHT. Pay attention to the details. Put your EXCELLENCE out there. Don’t copy other people. Don’t try to be the second someone else, be the FIRST YOU, then God can use you to impact the people he created for you to reach. ALL THAT SAID, this sermon preview from LifeChurch.TV is RIDICULOUS! probably the best, most over the top promo I have ever seen. Found this on TONY MORGANS blog, i think he got it from Los.

Does your church rock?

So I had this idea today as I drove in from Nashville. A lot of churches are doing series about movies or music etc, things that are culturally relevant. I love when I see churches doing this, and believe Jesus used the culture of his day to communicate to those who followed him.

Video Games move the cultural needle in a big big way. In May, Grand Theft Auto released their latest version of the hit game. Here are a few stats:
– Sold 3.6 million units in the first day
– Sold 6 million units in the first week
– Hit $500 million in sales in the first week
That is a huge cultural event. So on June 22 the Wii will get its first version of the hit game, Rock Band. Wii is the biggest thing in gaming and family fun since Pac-Man. Rock Band debuted in November and as of May 2 has sold over 3 million bundles. Enough back story.

What if your church did a series called ROCK BAND. Each week you pick a different rock star and title your sermon by that name. I have not put a ton of thought into this, but you could also pick songs. Musicians would be cooler I think. ROCK BAND: THE TOUR OF A LIFETIME…Kid Rock (parenting), U2 (grace, evangelism, assimilation, outreach…), Taylor SWIFT (life forces rapid changes???? needs development), Ludacris (faith, miracles, hope). Pick your subject, taylor you message. If your church can handle it, play music from that artist in your service. You could start the series by actually playing the game, full band, on stage, big screens. Lots and lots of ways to take this little idea and make it huge, but I think it is something that could be really dope. If you are a pastor and thinking of doing this, let me know. Have a great weekend.