Greetings from the Creative Infusion conference at Daybreak! I’m here with FaithVisuals.com, a sister site of PreachingToday.com. The conference is geared towards people in creative ministry, particularly with visual media.
During one of yesterday’s sessions, the speaker talked about Daybreak’s recent, four-week Easter series, “Miracle Drug.” The title of the series came from a U2 song, and they used the meaning that God’s love is the miracle drug that fills the void inside each of us.
Daybreak took a very interesting approach to the series. They initially began a marketing campaign by distributing 50,000 flyers to people in the area. The flyer featured the title and an introduction to the series, along with a photograph of a marijuana pipe. This provocative mailer was the first step in the creation of the series.
Inspired by the Gnarls Barkley video “Crazy,” the creative team here at Daybreak put together a whole theme around the artistic direction of that music video. Using video and illustrations of inkblots, they created a very intentional visual theme in PowerPoint slides, images, stage set up, printed materials, and everything else used in a church service.
One of the things they did was to play lots of U2 songs. Each Sunday had a separate focus centered around a U2 song: “Mysterious Ways,” “In the Name of Love,” “City of Blinding Lights,” and “Beautiful Day.” The band played covers of each song almost note for note, and produced great versions.
They said that some people in the church community were upset by their initial mailer, but the director of creative arts here at Daybreak said there were more concerned with attracting non-Christians than offending people.
So what do you think about this? Are these sorts of services (that mix pop culture and church) a good way to reach people or a way of “selling out” to the culture? And, between this and the U2Charist, are U2 songs the new prayer book of choice?
Ryan Hamm is assistant editor of Online Media at Christianity Today, International.
Posted by Brittany Tarr at 9:40 AM on May 18, 2007
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I find it fascinating that they chose such secular points to center the campaign on. Gnarls is probably more controversial than U2 (though I'm sure there are a lot of Christians who reject the social activism advocated by Bono), and I can see how that would get some people up in arms. But the most important thing, in my opinion, is that they determined what was important up front--reaching non-believers--and then stayed the course. One can argue (I won't here) how much/if you should worry about alienating people who are already believers, but from a marketing stand-point, I think it's fabulous that they chose a course and stuck with it.
Posted by: Molly on May 20, 2007
A singles pastor at a church I used to attend has an entire sermon series written based on U2 songs--very cool!
Posted by: med on May 20, 2007
I think this all depends on what you want to use your service for. If their intention is to use their service as an outreach tool that's fine. I don't think using any musical artist automatically compromises the gospel (even ones more controversial than the ones mentioned here), it just depends on how they're used.
The question for me would just be if creating a gospel-themed form of entertainment to bring people in is the best way to make non-believers into disciples, even as an entry point. But as Molly said in her post, that's a debate for another time.
Posted by: Trevor on May 21, 2007
I'm not familiar with much of the material used. But in principle I think the issue here is what were they trying to do and who were they trying to minister to. Most evangelicals find sports, competition, Music, even slight of hand as acceptable vehicles for sharing the gospel message to un-churched people. Rock music and it's descendants have a possible downside because so many Christians have claimed that it's from the pit of hell. Yet most everything used to share the gospel has a 'pit of hell' side to it. i.e. Competition is touted by American Christians as a great vehicle for the gospel and discipleship yet a strong case can be made that it is antithetical to the scriptures and the gospel, finding it's roots in Pagan society. If your reaching out to an unchurched group using their music that asks the right questions (And most musicians are asking questions) it provides relevant contact points and methods to share the Love of God. I wouldn't think of using this type of music on Sunday morning because of romans 14 but certainly if we're presenting an outreach in the town square.
Posted by: Mason on May 22, 2007
My comment is to read Deut. 12 vers 28-32
God Bless.
Posted by: Ramon on May 31, 2007