The Angry Birds phenomenon had been around long enough in 2011 to come up with a cartoon about an angry bird sermon. People love to give pastors ideas for sermons much like they love to give ideas to cartoonists!
Sermon Series and Pop Culture
So when I thought of this idea, I considered how technology has changed the church. If you walk into most churches today, you’ll at least see a projector on the wall. They have replaced hymn books with Powerpoint and lyrics projected on a wall. I see it as a good thing.
As a result, the way we process information and interact with speakers is changing. Powerpoint, and similar programs, have made it possible for us visual people to see a sermon as well as hear it. My pastor can weave a story like no other, but visuals still can do what words can’t. You can tell me about Red Square in Moscow, but I won’t have a clue what it looks like until you show me a picture of St. Basil’s Cathedral.
Therefore, there is a whole industry devoted to this stuff:
Social Media Comes to Church
That was the most obvious way technology has changed things. Then I wondered how social media has changed things. Does your church have a Facebook fan page? How about a Twitter account? And what’s all this stuff about Tik Tok? It’s one of the many ways that have changed the way we communicate, whether person to person or church to the congregation. Instead of a postcard or mailer, do you text your latest event? I thought of how I get information from my church now. Sometimes, I’ll get a note in the mail along with an announcement on Facebook. I find that the more ways I’m approached with a subject, the better I’ll remember it. How many ways do you reach out to people? There are so many articles just about those topics:
Social media led me to Angry Birds. It seems like such a silly game. Who would have thought a game where you use a slingshot to fire birds at pigs would be a sensation? Oh, the many facets that would make a sermon topic sing! Well, maybe not. You could perhaps do one Sunday on anger, then another Sunday on inertia. After that, perhaps you could do a topic on treating pigs the way you want to be treated, or birds before swine. Hey! Maybe you COULD make a whole sermon series out of Angry Birds!
I drew this for the CHOGNews in August 2011.
