I love/hate movie trailers. They always show the best/funniest scenes or show you the whole movie (beginning, turning point, end) in three minutes. Most of the time I find you can just skip the movie, watch the trailer and save $8 bucks.
Took my wife to the movies a few weeks ago and saw the trailer for the new movie "Green With Envy" staring Jasion Segal and Amy Adams. 30 seconds into the trailer and I thought “here we go again, crediting the actors, check, so next they will show Ryan working to make it up to Amy, show the kid/place/item that connects them, show Amy coming around, the two comming back together, show the final make up kiss…” then WHAM….WAIT, WHAT!?! Totally blindsided. Most creative movie trailer in the past decade.
In the church the weekly service can be like a movie trailer. Everyone comes in and knows what to expect. Song, Welcome, Two more songs, offering speach and prayer, offering song, message, conclusion/alter call, final song, announcments, dismissal, lunch. Take a lesson from the few creative people left in Hollywood and change things up, mess with the order, do something unexpected. That is what people remember.
Here is an example from our F-Word series on Forgivness at Renegade Church where our Creative Pastor Skip Mozisek came out with a spontainous interuption of the service that had eveyone talking for weeks.
So, what are you going to do this week to mix it up, help people remember the message and start talking about your service?
