Give Me BIG IDEAS & You Get 1 Year of BIG IDEAS

I need your help as we plan BIG IDEAS for next year. If you leave me a comment I will e-mail you our 2008-09 BIG IDEA plan.

In a couple weeks some of the gang from Community and some of the gang from our NewThing Network will hole themselves up for a couple days and compile one years worth of BIG IDEAS.  These BIG IDEAS will become the themes that we will use in our Celebration Service and small groups for adults, and then in an age-appropriate way for students and kids.  It is a great concept!  If you want more information on how we do it at Community click HERE.

I already have some good ideas that I hope make the cut.  But I also know that you have some great ideas that you have used in the past or would like to use.  I'll make you a deal.  If you leave me a comment with your best suggestions, when we get done planning our BIG IDEAS I will e-mail our 1-Year BIG IDEA plan to you.  So, give me your best BIG IDEAS.

Comments

[Mike Demastus]

I'll take a copy!

[Mike Demastus]

Sorry I didn't leave the idea with the last post...one thing we did last year that was just a blast and led to many decisions was a series (the idea has been done by others) called "The Bridge." Each week we constructed a physical bridge on stage as we spent each week constucting the idea that God has "bridged" the gap between fallen man and himself by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. At the end of the series on the last week, we called for decisions and as they were made people walked across the bridge...it was awesome! The Bridge is a part of our church's landscape now...every once in a while people still take pictures on it to commemorate their decision.

[Leonard Lee]

We are beginning a series called HANDS DOWN which means by far the best, easily the best no contest. The whole series is about the attributes of God. Each week we will take on attribute of God and present it in our children's and other groups as well as the sermon. This gives us a way to talk deep theology in a practical manner.

[Frank Chiapperino]

Here is a great idea we did that I really enjoyed. The sermon series was called "Googling God." Here was the promotional summary:
In today’s world, more information is available at our fingertips than ever before. Instant messaging, mobile-to-mobile conversations, internet searches, emails and podcasts are the norm. In our fast-paced, information driven society, there are still many questions that remain unanswered.
Join us this Sunday as we begin the series, Googling God, as we attempt to answer some of your frequently asked questions.

In each program the prior Sunday we put question cards in for each person to fill out and place in the offering bowls. We took the most frequently asked questions to pick the sermons. Here were our sermon titles from those cards:
Week 1 - Is the Bible Real?
Week 2 - How Can I follow A God I Can't See?Week 3 - Evolution Or Intelligent Design?
Week 4 - What about suffering?

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

[rick womack]

idea..."Bumper Stickers"

[Lundie]

I'm in! I'd love to see a series on why being involved with a church is important, and why taking a sabbath rest is also crucial. Though I am a Christ-follower, I haven't fully engaged in church attendance. It can be hard to connect with people at celebration services...especially for we introverts! ;)

[mike hannah]

I’ll pass along three ideas…

1) It's the End of the World as We Know It - A series on the end times. We did a cool trailer (I think) with the REM song. You can check it out here. http://youtube.com/watch?v=APxu6mi5MYA

Topics were

It all starts with an earthquake

I'll be Back! - The Return of Jesus

Making the Final Cut: The Judgment

Is it just me, or is it hot in here? Hell, Eternal Punishment, and the Devil

I feel fine! Heaven, Eternity, and Other Really Great Stuff

2) We did a series called "One Hit Wonders" It was a series through the one chapter books of the New Testament. Each one was linked to a one hit wonder song from the 70's, 80's or 90's. The titles were

-The Promise - Jude (it ends with one of the greatest promises of the NT).
-If You Leave - Philemon
-Don't Pull Your Love Out - 2nd John
-Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting - 3rd John

You can check out our trailer here -http://youtube.com/watch?v=LmWhtl1qOWM

3) We did another series - Sweet Relationships - the titles were

- Sugar Daddy
- Sour Patch Kids
- Good and Plenty
- Lifesavers

Each Sunday we handed out the candy at the front door.

Hope some of those helped

[daleschaeffer]

I'm in!

God at the Movies
(grew by 25% over 4 weeks)

Old School
(used 80's rock to theme a series on old school spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, study, confession, worship)

Q&A
(3 weeks...15 questions...7 minutes each...we surveyed people about their questions about the bible and faith, and then take 7 minutes to answer each question...see my blog for the invite card logo)

Simple Faith
(the core beliefs of a christfollower)

The Elephant in the Church
(blatent rip off of NCC in DC)

Gametime
(making the most of your current stage of life...play off the quarters of a football game...launch in the fall)

Moment of Truth
(learning to live an authentic life in Christ...a series on authenticity...a play off of the tv show)

IM
(communicating with God, my spouse, and my children, and my peers)

Hush
(learning to hear the voice of God)

[Ben D,]

Here are a couple...
- We're Sorry --- a series asking forgiveness from the church universal for issues like racism, anti-semitism, hypocrisy, etc.

- SpringSweeps --- life lessons from great TV shows (wisdom, decision making, etc)

- In A World of Hurt --- the problem of evil (3 week series) (Job, Jesus & Lazarus, Psalms of Lament)

- $ign Here... about signing all of our stuff over to God... financial health, etc.

Looking forward to what you guys come up with!

BD

[Mark Schulz]

We are doing a series called "Arrested Development" that looks at spiritual growth... oh, wait... we got that one from you... (grin)

Actually we are doing a series I'm excited about this year called "Rhythm." We did one week on the concept of Sabbath rest last year and it was so well received we are doing a whole series on the rhythms of life - daily rest, weekly rest, annual rest, etc. We are using the Message version of Matthew 11:29 - "Learn the unforced rhythms of grace" as the theme verse. I know our music folks have some cool drum stuff planned.

[Rick Johnson]

How about stepping back into the tradition of the Christian Church by doing a four week Advent message series prior to Christmas and a six week Lenten series before Easter. Last year for the six Sundays in Lent we did "Questions that demand an Answer" using questions from the Gospels that were asked by Jesus, his disciples or his enemies during the last week before the crucifixion and ending with Easter. The questions are very applicable today. Send me your Big Idea plan!

[Dan Richardson]

Last October, right before halloween, we launched a series called "Poison". It was pretty simple as it was about things in your life that are poison - consumerism, apathy, envy, etc.

We tried to go heavy on the props with this one and it was our most successful series to date. In the entrance to the theatre we had beakers set up with with green "poison" (water with green/yellow food poisoning) bubbling with a back light to emphasize the steam. On the stage we had a coffin with a table set with place settings along with wine glasses with "poison" in them. Lastly, for invites, we bought glass viles and filled them with the poison. On one side of the vile we had the series title, "Poison" and on the other side we had the web domain for the series.

Maybe it was the timing because it was around Halloween, but this series was very well received by our people.

[Dan Richardson]

I forgot to mention that we also just did a series starting on Easter based on the book UnChristian titled: 'I like Jesus...but I can't stand His wife!' We had a little pushback from other churches in the area but all in all, we had an amazing response from people that have never been to church or used to go "way back when".

[R]

wow!!!! Great Ideas!!!!!!!!! this is not a new idea.... but I have been told by some long time attenders how at Celebration Services few few years back there was a 'alter Call' for prayer and anoiting with oil.......... you think perhaps we can do that again.. ??

[Chad MIller]

I would like to see a series on Made. I loved that show on MTV. It would follow people along different avenues of faith and show how much their faith in Christ has increased as they experience life. It would take a lot of documentary style work, but would really highlight your mentoring/discipleship process. That would be pretty great to me.

Thanks for the copy in advance!

[Malcolm Tyree]

A Big Idea series I'm considering is based on the book unChristian. The series is "I'm Sorry!" and it will focus on repenting of our un-Christ-like behavior as characterized in the book.

Last year, our church did a series called "Still Thirsty?" and we look how we are surrounded by plenty, but we are unsatisfied - we're still thirsty. The theme verse for the month was Haggai 1:6.

The Still Thirsty Series featured a logo design with a man sitting in his living room, staring at the TV with a half-empty glass of beer in his hand.

Wk 1 - Chaser: Pursuing Something More
Wk 2 - Bingeing: When too much right is wrong
Wk 3 - Wasted: Living, But Not Really Alive
Wk 4 - The Usual: Break Free From the Boredom
Wk 5 - Thirst Quencher: Find Your True Self

[FreedbyJC]

We are getting deeper as a body -one disciple at a time...doing a whole year focusing on Church Health and how it relates to the individual health...

7 Signs of a Healthy Church
2 Health Nuggets from Proverbs
6 Habits of the Physically Healthy
8 Commitments of the Spiritually Healthy
8 Essential Elements to Healthy Relationships
6 Steps to Mental and Emotional Health
7 Choice Attitudes and Attitudes of Choice

By tying the health of the congregational body to the health of the individual body and visa-versa we know that as we raise up Christ, He will draw people into a real realationship with HIM.

[Jeff]

I always wanted a series on "why". Like why did God create mosquitos? Why did God make my armpits stink? Really deep questions like that.

[Paul]

One series we're going to do is "tattooed". The idea came to us from Vince Antonucci's book "I Became a Christian, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt", and a chapter titled "AKA". Essentially, we all get "tattooed" with words that hurt and sting, things we've been told, thoughts we've had about who we are - and they can remain with us for years (like a permanent tattoo). But, God wants to "tattoo" us with some new words. Removing the old tattoo's will be painful, but in their place, God wants to put a more permanent tattoo - with words like "Child of God", "loved one", "heir", etc. Thanks for being willing to pass along your Big Ideas, Dave.

P.S. We've already had a couple of people who have become Jesus-followers here say that they would love to get a tattoo with spiritual significance, as part of the series.

[Debbie]

I don't have a suggestion, but I laughed aloud at my desk here at work when I read the "why" suggestion ,,, I've often wondered on the mosquito thing myself!

[Scott Baker]

Here are a couple Big Ideas

1. Rated MA for Mature

Sometimes we take for granted Bible stories we learned as kids. Noah's Ark, David and Goliath, Jonah, etc. These stories have adult messages to them. David cut off the head of Goliath, you do not hear that very much in pre-school. The other thing is there are a lot of adults who have not heard these stories before because they did not grow up in the church. So we can take a children's story and give it an adult meaning.

2. Backyard Barbeque

There is a practice in the New Testament church to share a meal together. This built community in the body. You can encourage people to plan a cook-out and invite people over. Have people submit their favorite barbeque recipes. Develop a study to go alnog with a cook-out. Give away a grill during the series. The Big Idea is community building and the importance of it in the church.

[bob robbins]

I think it would be great to do a series based on the deadly vipers book. I think the whole ninja theme could be way cool!

[Jerry]

Here's an overview of my stewardship series.

•Next Chapter Stewardship: Faithful Stewardship, Matthew 25:14-30, God has entrusted us with the raw materials of life and expects us to manage them well.

•Next Chapter Stewardship: Stewardship & Spiritual Growth, Matthew 6:21, Stewardship is about more than money. It is a tool that God uses to bring maturity to his followers as we learn to manage all of his treasures.

Next Chapter Stewardship: Stewardship & The Gospel, 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, 2 Timothy 2:2, God has entrusted us with the message of His Good News – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He expects us to pass it on to others.

Next Chapter Stewardship: Stewardship & Money, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, Malachi 3:6-12, God has blessed us with financial resources in order to bring blessing to the world.

[Matt]

We did a vision series in January called Dangerous Church that resonated with our church family.

Week 1 - Dangerous Prayer
The size of your prayers communicates the size of your God, so what are you going to pray for this year that's big?

Week 2 - Dangerous Grace
Jesus came to restore a relationship with lost, disconnected people so whose life are you going to invest in this year?

Week 3 - Dangerous Surrender
The issue is never the value of what you hold in your hand. The issue is...do you trust your Heavenly Father?

Week 4 - Dangerous God
In this week we cast the vision for where God was leading our church in 2008.

[DL]

Another blatant ripoff but in keeping with your Generosity theme, do a give back to the people of the church for them to take the money and give it to someone else that has a need. Elevation in NC did it, here's the link.

http://www.stevenfurtick.com/church-planting/bless-back-project/