Uncross their arms

Okay last night I started to talk about why we do some of the things we do at CCC. I talked about the importance of getting the un-churched, anti-churched person to uncross their arms and be open once they come to a service. How do we do that?

Well if we were trying to reach the guy who is church shopping we'd just need to be a better version of the church he used to go to. He liked that one but he moved to our area and he would like to upgrade his church experience or at least have a church that is as good as his old church. So if we have a better band playing the latest worship music and get a really good speaker who can "feed him meat from the Word and help him grow deep" we can get that guy to stay. But if we want to reach truly unchurched or anti-churched people we have to do something else. They didn't come looking for a better version of their last church. They weren't looking for church at all, they aren't even sure why they came other than they were invited or life "hit them upsdie the head" and they had no where else to turn. They generally are shocked they came. They are expecting not to like it and to not return.

Now here is what we do. You can debate whether we are right or not but this is what we are doing and God seems to blessing it here in Coweta - at least right now. First, we want the music they hear to be louder than they expect a church to play it. We want it to feel more like a party than like the church they thought they'd find. Also if they come before the service we want them to hear songs they probably heard on their radio as they drove into the parking lot. That's why before every service we play the current hot songs that AREN'T played on Christian radio. The first thing they hear from the stage is our band playing a song that is recognizable to them. Another huge tool in our bag to help them see we're the same as them and understand life in the 21st century is drama that could come right from their life. We also want to try our best to use humor that shows we don't take ourselves that seriously. All of this to get them to at least think in the first 10 minutes "Wow! This is not at all what I expected."

All of this leads to us explaining what God has to say about life. When we do that we do not "water it down" or "make it over simplified." The truth is that following Christ is hard but it isn't complicated. We often try to make it seem complicated in the name of being "deep." We choose instead to place the truth of God on the bottom shelf. But make no mistake about it "once their arms are uncrossed" we present the WHOLE truth of God on the bottom shelf. But before they can hear it they have to uncross their arms.