I love it when some of the more creative churches in the country give away their stuff for other churches to use and tailor for their own use.
Last Fall National Community Church, in Washington, D.C.did a series called “The Elephant in the Church”. The have created a whole site for that series and are giving away their materials for any church to down load and use (yes for free). I like the way they used this series to challenge folks and were not afraid to ‘get in some faces’. As the series description states:
Churches are often full of people—and sometimes, elephants. We’ve found a number of different elephants in the church that need addressing. It’s time we loosened up and talked about the issues that are so often avoided by the church-at-large.
It is time to throw off the gloves and tackle the issues that everyone thinks about, but never discusses. During this seven-week series, we talk candidly about the issues that plague us, the topics that confuse us and the questions that intrigue us. We believe that something special happens in the course of this dialogue. And we want to share that with you.
NCC found 7 elephants they wanted to talk about:
- Gray = Legalism
- Fake = Hypocrisy
- Circus = Spirtual Consumerism
- Sexy = Sex
- Christian = Focus on the term “Christian”
- Blindfolded = the Bible
- Apocaloyptic = the Apocalypse
The question is, what are the elphants in your church and what are you doing to address them? Talk to your pastor and your creative teams and think about coming up with a list for your church and using the materials NCC is giving away (or use your own) to deal with them in an engaging way.