 |
|
Buzz: Tim Stevens on Innovation and Buzz
Tim Stevens from Granger Community Church gave some great examples of “buzz” as it applies to churches. Tim said that ‘buzz’ happens when consumers spend their own time and money to spread the word. Here are some of my raw notes. Hopefully they will make some sense to you...
A good example of buzz is the “Witch Project” movie from several years ago. The total budget of that move was $35,000. They started a word of mouth campaign on college campuses. The end result: $10,000 in profit for every $1 spent.
Buzz is rooted in emotion; things that make us surprised, make us gasp, things that we can’t hardly believe. Things that make us talk
Mylamesexlife.com was one of Granger’s intentional efforts to create buzz in their community. The result was over 2,000 additional people at the first Granger service of the Pure Sex series; and 800 additional attenders (on average) at Granger after the series ended.
Buzz only happens if you’re having an impact.
Most churches don’t create buzz because they’re not having an impact.
Tim asked all of us this question… Would our community be any different if our church ceased to exist? How long would it take to recover, or how long would it take them to discover we’re gone?
Pop culture is the language of the day… and it’s a brand new day. It’s a media-driven world. People aren’t just informed from the media; they are shaping their beliefs from the media. (Even theology, whether we like it or not).
We must leverage that to reach people.
All churches handle culture in one of five ways. They will:
1. Ignore the culture
2. Separate from culture
3. Condemn the culture
4. Embrace the culture
5. Leverage the culture
Most of the people we’re trying to reach don’t have the “love church, love Christ” filter that we grew up with.
John 1:14: God “moved into the neighborhood” (The Message)
Use the popular culture to get into people’s hearts and minds then build a bridge to scriptural truth.
We need to be “Cultural Missionaries”
Why does a certain element of culture connect with people? We need to figure out how to use this to help to connect them over to Christ.
1. You can use pop culture as a hook.
2. You can use pop culture to lower defenses.
3. Find great art and re-create it.
This post has been viewed 406 times and was added on June 29, 2007 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
It's easy...
Link to this URL
- - - - - - - - - -
I'm Todd Rhoades... the MMI guy. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the founder and developer of a website named ChurchStaffing.com.
MondayMorningInsight.com | PO Box 446 | Bryan, OH 43506 |
Post Your Comments: