Guest Blog: Josh Brower
OLD is the new NEW
I’ve been noticing that many ideas are sprouting from our American media culture that are not new. Many are fairly old, simply polished to look new. Consider the following list of “oldies” that have recently reappeared:
TV:
- American Gladiators
- The Terminator
- Knight Rider is returning as a series (yessssss!)
- The evening game show genre is back: “Deal or No Deal,” “Amnesia,” and that freaky lie detector show “Moment of Truth”
Music:
- Copeland has redone “Another Day in Paradise” and “Take My Breath Away”
- Quietdrive remade Cindy Lauper’s “Time after Time”
- The Rolling Stones never really went away. Now they’re the subject of Martin Scorsese’s “Shine A Light”
- Guitar Hero brought back so many rockin’ tunes… My two-year-old knows “Carry On My Wayward Son!” (ROCK ON!)
Movies:
- Batman, Spiderman, and Superman have all made comebacks
- Ocean’s 11 was a remake (sort of)
- Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go
- Hairspray? (Maybe some things weren’t really worth remaking…)
Every one of these was spruced up with technology and a new look to be entertaining and attractive to today’s culture, without losing the idea behind the original concept. Sometimes when transitioning a church or a “churched” mindset, we as leaders may completely kill something that simply needs an update. Maybe we just need to bring back something old and make it new.
King Solomon was wise enough to recognize that there’s really nothing “new” under the sun. But God makes all things new!
What are you doing “retro”? And how’s it going?
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Hummmm, good thoughts. I’ll have to get my creative juices flowing and reconsider some things but I’m pretty sure this children’s pastor won’t be revisiting the flannel graph.
Love the concept of UPDATE…..almost everyone can update….hey, what’s wrong with flannel graphs lol
Josh- This requires some thought; I think what I’ll do is read everyone else’s comments and stop back by later and agree with some of them.
Creative Post!
Hmmmm Maybe I have one:
Lori, “flannel graph…” I just had a wicked flashback (I grew up in Cape Cod, Mass, hence the word “wicked”
Judy, thanks for the comments.
Everyone else, I’ll be in NYC on mission today, but I’ll try to comment as much as I can via CrackBerry.
Intersting thoughts. We have not done it yet but it is something we can discuss in our creative meeting today.
I’m going retro be revisiting Luther and the Reformation. Seems he was out to do the same thing- looking to the future by looking to the past.
I know, I know. Sorry I went all brainy on you! Just think it is intriguing, the whole idea of the future of the Church being guided by what our “founding fathers” did. There is something huge there, I can just feel it. It sounds too cool for there not to be.
We’ve seen that already with some reworked hymns–the gems.
Scott and Jim, I am looking forward to what you’ll post later today.
LaMo, cool!
Christine N, there are many bands out there reworking some of old hymns and they’re pretty good (of course some are not so good)
keep em’ coming!
I appreciate the Copeland mention…ah, what a band!
Haha…at our recent summer camp, we wrote and performed a very cheesy 80s song…keytar…shredding on a 7-string Ibanez…vocoders….
It was a blast, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately, the kids were to young to understand a lot of the references, but hey, we got a kick out of it.
That is great. As a young adult pastor I have noticed many young adult groups that go up and then fall down. The main reason why is they base there groups on activities. The problem with that is activities come and go. What’s popular now will not be in 3 months and then you will have to scramble to find the latest trend. The ones that I see that are successful take preaching and worship music and repackage it to fit the ears and heart of the generation they are reaching.
I must remind myself regularly that it’s not the events or programs but it’s the word of God and our relationship with him that change our heart and lives and attract all the people. Let the people work out what they like to do for fun and call then small groups.
This is a good reminder as we plan worship services.
I quit parting my hair down the middle but now after reading your post I think I may go back to that look or the Magnum PI look with the hair straight back and those awesome OP shorts with the Rick Warren–I mean Hawaiian shirt.
[...] Old is the new NEW [...]
I think I’ll go buy a rotary dial phone rather than an iPhone on Friday.
I’m pretty sure that the world is now ready for the return of parachute pants. I’m game!
It seems to be kind of the trendy thing to bring a ton of old hymns back and play those. The thing with that is that many of our people just do not understand what is being said. But I have found myself going back pulling songs that I haven’t done in 2 or 3 years+, reworking them and then introducing them. Some people know them, others don’t and it is a great way to bring a really great song back and have it be fresh.
I think one of the biggest problems isn’t necessarily so much that what we used to do doesn’t work anymore (although that definitely is the case at times). Rather, I think it’s what we used to do, we often don’t do well anymore. A lot of churches have moved away from having a choir. But a good choir can still be a very powerful force. A lot of pastors/churches have moved away from expository teaching, but maybe it’s just that we accidentally drifted away from good expository preaching.
Maybe what we need isn’t to reinvent the wheel, maybe we just need to air up the tires…
[...] Posted by Patrick Sievert under church planting Josh Brower had a guest blog over on swerve today about how Old can be the new [...]
Matt and Matt, great comments.
Larry, don’t forget to feather your hair.
Kenyon, sometimes a break from the iPhone is what we all need once in awhile.
Joe and Matt, thanks for your comments.
re done hymns are the hot retro thing right now. well they have been for the past 5 years at least.
the guitar hero thing along with the propensity of limewire has students very well versed in 80’s and 90’s hits. rather than remixing current songs with Christian words..i’d be interested to see if anyone is using these old riffs or even choruses from such songs to ‘package’ our current worship songs on a youth level..
Patrick–I like what you said. Or have we done the same old thing over again without the thought or prayer behind it that made it so powerful in the first place? For example, songs/hymns sung without thinking about the words, public prayers said without really focusing on that it’s God we’re talking to, videos played because we need some media example to catch attention or spice up the sermon….
Hummmm, off the track of what you are all saying, as I am new, VERY new to LifeChurch, but I have finally “looking forward to Sundays!”, it’s not about “oh, the weekend is over…”, “let’s iron our shirts and pack lunches”….it’s about the LifeChurch Experience….yah…I told you I was off track of what you all were talking about. I guess I just wanted to leave a comment - See my name in bold letters, but also tell you all how truly honestly HAPPY I am that I found you all, LifeChurch, Josh and his wife Heather! Without you and them, my life would be so very confusing right now! So again, sorry to change the subject - Just wanted to add a note that on Sundays - I am the happiest person in Colonie, NY!!!
[...] from swerve.lifechurch.tv OLD is the new NEW I’ve been noticing that many ideas are sprouting from our American media [...]