I’m listening to Tim Stevens speak right now. Here are some rough draft notes.

Warning: these have passed through the Mark Batterson filter

The church faces two huge challenges in our culture:

1) People can’t hear us
2) People don’t trust us

So how do we create buzz? How do we speak the truth so boldly and so creatively that we cannot be ignored. How do we become unignorable?

We could learn a lesson from amazon, You Tube, and My Space.

Tim shared about their mylamesexlife.com series. It was off the buzz chart. It created a buzz in the local and national media. And Granger had several thousand guests during that series! What astounds me is that some people were offended because they didn’t think the church should be talking about things like that. What? God invented it.

Granger put up billboards that created some serious buzz–four feet sticking out of a bed sheet. One of the billboards was right next to a Hooters. What a great juxtaposition. There is no question that it was very provocative. But that is one way you create buzz.

Tim cited one of my favorite buzz books by Mark Hughes titled Buzzmarketing.

According to Hughes, there are six ways to get buzz:

1) The unusual
2) The outrageous
3) The taboo
4) The hilarious
5) The remarkable
6) The secretive

Listen. We shouldn’t be different for difference sake. We shouldn’t try to make news to make news. We better do the right things for the right reasons or they will implode and backfire. But we need to buzz.

In the words of Jesus: “Compel them to come in so my house will be full.”

Churches that are serious about incarnation need to leverage culture. How do we use the emotional response to music? How do we use redemptive themes in movies?

FYI–that is what we do with our God @ the Billboards & God @ the Box Office.

Tim shared about the way movies like The Matrix were spiritual catalysts in his life. I actually put my faith in Christ after watching a movie called The Hiding Place. Tim’s point was we need to use culture to build inroads into people’s hearts. We need to leverage culture. Isn’t that what Paul did in Athens? In fact, he used an idol to lead people to God. Pure Genius!

Here are some ways to use pop culture:

1) Use pop culture to acquaint people with the stories of the Bible.
2) Use pop culture to illustrate Biblical truth.
3) Use secular images and songs to surface deep life issues.

Using pop culture isn’t pop gospel. Let’s call it what it is: incarnation. One of our core values is: irrelevance is irreverence! Jesus used agrarian metaphors. We need to use news, songs, movies, TV shows, etc.

We think of langauge in terms of English, Greek, and Hebrew. But the language of today is pop culture. The language of today is felt need.

Maybe we need to be as serious about learning the language of culture as we do Greek and Hebrew? I’m all for studying the original languages of Scripture. They give us greater understanding. But we aren’t called to be interpreters. We’re translators! Ultimately, it’s our job to translate truth into languages people can understand.

Here is my big take away. Ready?

Granger is really really good about talking about the real issues and the real problems and the real questions people have! Incarnation is all about creativity. They use dramas and songs and movies and cultures in some amazingly creative ways! And lots of people are finding Christ because of their incarnational efforts!