Mitosis Session 3 - Tony Morgan Creating Buzz

Mark 1:40-41 - Buzz happens when peoples lives are changed.

• 75-80% of people attend church for the first time because they were personally invited.
• We as churches are always marketing because we want the Gospel spread.
• The reality is most people will walk through the doors of the church because someone they knows life was changed.
• Amazon.com takes their marketing dollars into improving their service because customers will tell other potential customers about their experience.
• 3 ?'s that need to be answered:

1. Who are we trying to reach?
2. Are we getting their attention?
3. Are they hearing our message?

• Who are we trying to reach? At New Spring (his church) they reach red necks :-). His pastor cannot go feminine or incredibly scholarly because it's the NASCAR crowd. He said this with tongue in cheek :-).
• What will they think of next principle. Keep people talking and asking what will they think of next week at...
  
• The most impacting churches out there do not add programs to make themselves more relevant or effective, but they rather find what is effective and stay focused on that.
• We give people too many choices and when that happens they shut down.
• "If you try to make everybody happy you have to be willing to embrace mediocrity!" WOW, what a quote.
• Are you getting their attention? You need three things: Relevant topics, Strategic themes and Biblical truth. This is a great filter for message every message series.
  
• Without all three you you don't capture their attention (no relevant topic), it doesn't connect (no strategic theme), LOL someone (in the crowd) said that it's like Oprah when you have a Relevant topic and Strategic theme, but no Biblical theme.
• Are they hearing your message?
• We're sharing the greatest story ever told and we assume ordinary people will recognize the power of the message.
• If the best musician can play on the nicest instrument and play some of the greatest music ever written and people don't connect then surely the best communicators can share the greatest story in the nicest facilities and the message not connect or be heard. (He used a story of Joshua Bell playing in a Washington D.C. metro stop and only few people stopping to listen and is drawing a parallel with our context and how we do our services.)
• People outside the church know us more for what we are against than what we are for.
• People didn't stop to listen to the violinist because they were busy and had other things on their minds.
• We are competing against careers, pillow, recreation... not against the church down the street.
• Some people didn't listen not because they didn't have the capacity for beauty, but because it was irrelevant.
  
• Are we stopping to help them get the healing they need rather than giving them the truth they think they need?
• Romans 10:14
  
• Is it possible to preach the Gospel message and not be heard?
• If people don't come to faith is it just noise?
• If Lives aren't transformed, does the message even matter?
• Creating Buzz is not about slick marketing or gimmicks, but rather lives being changed forever by the message of the cross.

Absolutely outstanding session! Get the CD/DVD through the bookstore when they come available it will be worth the investment.