Blog

by Teaching Pastor Jason Miller

A lot of us have worked hard to figure out how to use art to connect with the unchurched in our weekend services and we can point to lives that have been changed when God used that art to get past defenses, raise honest questions and speak powerfully into lives. Lately I’ve been stewing on the question of where we go from here. I think great art for our events is a great thing, especially when our events are part of the movement of the Kingdom of God. But what does art for the sake of the movement (as opposed to art for the sake of an event that is part of the movement) look like? A couple of brief thoughts:

  • People are drawn to a movement by its followers as much as its leader. People don’t emulate leaders. They emulate fellow followers. (See Paul’s line about following him as he follows Christ in 1 Corinthians 11.) If our art will serve the movement, it needs to elevate the stories of the movement’s followers. Old school testimony time might have more wisdom to it than we realize!
  • Movements are tied to places, times and people. They’re not static. They’re not floating in the clouds, like Platonic ideals that are detached from the blood and sweat of our everyday lives. And so art for the movement has to have a dynamic relationship with the place and time and people of the movement. It has to be responsive to the community and its needs. This is one of the reasons we’re pushing harder than ever to make original art a benchmark of our work at Granger. Original art can give a voice to the circumstances of the people right here in our neighborhood in a way that reproduced art cannot. If the incarnation is the moment when God wrapped Himself up in the circumstance of the people to whom He was sent, then original art is inherently incarnational.

What about you? Though there’s strength to be leveraged in the hegemony of popular culture, how do you think the Church can leverage art for the sake of a movement that is embedded in a certain place and time? What else needs to be true of our art if it will lend its full force to our mission? Check out an art installation Granger leveraged in a recent series called Before I Die... to capture and promote the heart of the topic being discussed on the weekend.

Bring your staff and volunteer leaders to the Creative & Communication Arts Workshop at Granger Thursday, May 19, to boost your impact with guests.Register by next Monday, April 18 to get the Early Bird rate of just $99 per person, or $89 for groups of 2–5, or $79 for groups of 6+. Attend both days ofworkshops (there’s a second day of additional workshops on Wednesday, May 18) and get a further discount: $20 off per day!

You’re probably just about ready for some sun. Have you considered Granger, Indiana, as your next vacation destination? Perhaps you’ve always longed to see the cornfields of Northern Indiana. No?

Hmm. How about considering Granger as a learning destination then? Wednesday and Thursday, May 18 and 19, WiredChurches.com will be hosting a variety of workshops at Granger Community Church, just 90 miles east of Chicago.

It’s easy. Pick one of the following workshops to attend all day. Come for one day or stay for two. Your materials and lunch are included. The experience? It will be packed with real-life examples of what works and what doesn’t, with space for questions and interaction.

The cost? Right now it’s just $99 per person, per day. Or $89 for groups of 2–5, or $79 for groups of 6 or more. Attend both days of workshops and get a further discount: $20 off per day!

Wednesday, May 18

Thursday, May 19

  • Creative & Communication Arts: Learn about Granger’s process for planning, promoting and executing weekend series.
  • Groups: Facilitate a working strategy to keep people engaged and discipled.
  • Kids: Learn about environments, curriculum and utilizing volunteers to help kids meet Jesus.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13
9 a.m.–4 p.m.

First Impressions
Presenter: Mark Waltz, Executive Pastor
Learn how to make great first impressions with guests (old and new). Discover ways to:

  • Gain clarity and get intentional about the experience you desire for your guests.
  • Build your team—the right team—from the ground up.
  • Cultivate volunteer “wow-makers.”
  • Determine the “rules” your church has (even if you don’t know them yet) and learn what to do about them.
  • Experience hands-on training that will empower your staff and your volunteers.

Students
Presenter: John Keim, Pastor of Granger Student Ministries
How do you keep students engaged and growing week after week? We’ll talk through planning and executing weekly programs and more! Be ready to collaborate and share ideas about:
  • How to build and train leadership teams.
  • Creative ways to get your message across.
  • How to get students out of their seats and serving in the community.
  • Planning life-changing mission trips, camps, retreats and events.


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14
9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Creative and Communication Arts
Presenters: Sean Bublitz, Creative Arts Pastor, and Jami Ruth, Communications Director
Learn about Granger’s process for planning, promoting and executing weekend series through:
  • Timelines and brainstorming creative ideas.
  • Executing a series plan.
  • Q&A with your Granger staff/volunteer counterpart (in web, production and sound, worship, design, promotions, film and more).
  • An optional weekend rehearsal experience Wednesday evening.

Groups
Presenter: Josh King, Director of Discipleship
Life is better in groups. We’ll talk through a working strategy to keep people engaged and discipled through groups. We’ll discuss the challenges and practical framework necessary to:
  • Look at the role groups play in discipleship.
  • Understand group structure.
  • Recruit and train healthy group leaders.
  • Organize curriculum and a yearly schedule.
  • Oversee group growth (numerically and spiritually).

Kids
Presenter: Ted Bryant, Pastor of Family Ministry
A healthy kids’ ministry has enormous impact. This is for leaders and volunteers who want to learn how to:
  • Create environments that inspire kids at their level and encourage learning and relational connection.
  • Plan and develop curriculum, music and more to make the Bible and relationships come alive.
  • Find, keep and utilize volunteers to make it happen every weekend.
  • Incorporate a special needs ministry to help every child take steps toward Christ.

Come for one day or stay for both days to maximize your learning!

 

by Director of Music and Worship Trace Rorie

If you’ve spent any length of time on a worship team, at some point you have probably heard someone discuss the tension between worship and performance. For those of you who are unsure what I’m talking about, here’s a brief synopsis:

As artists on a platform we have a responsibility to lead others in worship—therefore we should be genuinely worshiping as well. We point others toward God, not ourselves. Therefore any conduct on stage that draws attention toward ourselves and away from God is a bad thing. Typically this is labeled as performance. It’s not the easiest of debates to find resolution to, because how can one argue against the above logic? But I think we’re labeling performance as a negative too quickly.

How many sermons, lectures or presentations have we all sat through in which the content was good, but the presentation was boring, disengaging and lifeless? If you’re able to look past a horrible delivery and focus on the content, you’re a better person than I am! In the church, we tend to focus on the content we’re delivering without giving equal attention to the way that we’re presenting it. At Granger, what we want from our artists is for the presentation to reflect the content. For example, if we’re singing about the grandeur of the glory of God, our visual presentation should be consistent with the magnitude of that idea. Why is this? Well, it’s primarily because the vast majority of people who are experiencing our services aren’t musical and therefore don’t understand musical things. Sure, they might sense that something is awry when the keyboard player misses some notes, but they likely can’t pinpoint the issue. But every single person in our services is an expert on human behavior. They can tell if that vocalist is on autopilot or the guitarist is unsure of where he’s at in the song. So delivering an engaging presentation is just as vital as the words we’re singing or the notes we’re playing, because oftentimes it speaks louder than anything else.

At Granger, we have come up with some guidelines that help us accomplish this goal. We’re a volunteer-driven arts ministry, so we can’t expect our team to be experts in this sort of thing. It’s our responsibility to help equip them so they can fulfill any expectations we have of them. We call it STEP. This is how we want our volunteers to prepare for, execute, and evaluate what they do in our worship experiences.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Team’s Blog...

If you would like to learn more about Granger’s process for planning, promoting and executing weekend series come to our Creative & Communication Arts Workshop. In the morning, we’ll talk timelines, brainstorming, programming and decision making. In the afternoon, we’ll have small-group Q&A with your Granger staff/volunteer counterpart (like the Web Director, Production Director, Lighting Director, Worship Director, etc.), where you can ask any burning questions you have. Register today!

by Director of Story Kristin Baker

Yes, believe it or not, it’s time to talk about Christmas. After many years of having Christmas “surprise” us, we’ve started the discussions and planning earlier and earlier each year. We’ve come to realize the crucial timing of the season to bring in new people who would never step foot in a church for most of the year. To the Average Joe or Jane, taking your kids to see a Christmas show as a part of the natural rhythm of the season makes much more sense than dragging your family out of bed every Sunday morning and piling up an extra commitment to the rhythm of your week. So—we put a lot of thought, energy, creativity, and resources into our Christmas plans every year with Joe and Jane and their family in mind.

Here are a few samples of some of the Christmas productions we’ve done in past years:

2013 Scrooge: A Modern Musical

Our own spin on A Christmas Carol with recent hits on the billboard charts.

We held auditions for this and then wrote the show to the people we had, which provided a fun new spin and some interesting new characters. It was kind of an Annie meets Scrooge, since we had an army of talented kids audition. We figured God always makes the best of what we offer Him, so we’d better make the best of what He offered us. This fun, new take on a classic story was the result.

2012: Granger Commons Christmas Spectacular (Variety Show)

With the rising popularity of Christmas specials on TV, we thought we’d take a stab at a variety show, featuring our volunteers in their sweet spots. This was a fun show to put together, but we found the attendance wasn’t quite what we’d hoped. We found that, no matter how excellent the arts we were offering, story sells. People just weren’t sure what a “Christmas Spectacular” was. However, we had a blast!

2011: Let it Be Christmas

A full-length production telling the Christmas Story with Beatles music. We had originally produced a shorter version of this show in 2007, which sold out. We thought we’d try it again and expand it a bit. It sold out once again. Guess people like the Beatles, but we ended up showing them Jesus is even cooler. (Sorry, John Lennon.)

2010: Once Upon a Midnight Clear

A completely original full-length musical inspired by the movie Big Fish. What would the Christmas story look like if it took place in a vintage Circus? This was risky. Some loved it. Some, especially those who are afraid of clowns, didn’t like it so much. But I was incredibly proud of our team for trying something completely original. We grew and learned a lot from this show. At the end of Big Fish people told the author, “That’s my dad! I just didn’t know how to tell his story!” The manger scene gets lost in the clutter of Christmas, so we hoped a new setting for the manger might shed some new light. We hoped people would see our show and say “That’s my God! I just didn’t know how to tell His story!”

This summer we hope you’ll take some time to ask God what He wants to say to your community through you this Christmas. After all, it is His birthday!

To learn more about Granger’s process for planning, promoting and executing weekend series, come to the Creative & Communication Arts Workshop—one of many workshops happening October 13 & 14. Get your tickets now and save money with early bird discounts.

by Creative Arts Pastor Sean Bublitz

One thing that’s been incredibly helpful to us over the years has been seeing how other people do it. We realize that in our bubble there are many things we don’t see, don’t think about, or don’t have the right answer for yet. Experiencing the same thing, done a bit differently, exposes us to innovative thinking and gets us outside of our box.

With that in mind the intention of this post is to give you a recent behind-the-scenes peek at how Granger Community Church does Production. This isn’t all inclusive. That wouldn’t fit in one post. This is a virtual, visual tour of our production environments and how we do things.

If you’re interested in our gear list you can see our previous post.

AUDIO

We have 3 identical Studer Vista 8 consoles.  One at FOH, one for Ear Monitors, and one for our Broadcast mix.  Each console has a set of outboard gear and we currently use volunteers to operate many audio positions on the weekend.  Our main PA is made up of Meyer MSL-4, DS-4, and DF-4 enclosures along with Meyer 650-P subs.  We use Smaart as well as Audia for our system control.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Arts Team Blog...


by Sean Bublitz, Creative Arts Pastor

I’m a huge fan of hockey and when I lived in the Chicago area I used to go watch the Blackhawks practice. It was incredible to see how the professionals prepare. They go full speed. Game speed. They practice exactly like they play in a game so that when it’s game time they’re ready, not trying to get up to speed.

We’ve applied the same idea to our weekend services. The last thing we want is to go into our first service not truly prepared. Not ready to give our best.

So each week before our first service we do, what we call, a service run through. In the run through we do everything that we’re going to do in a service, sans the message, before there are people in the room.

The benefit is that our excellence level is high from the beginning of the very first service. We’ve already worked through transitions, fixed mistakes, and practiced our cues. The nerves are mostly gone and we’re as prepared as possible.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Arts Blog...

If you’d like to learn more about what goes on in Creative Arts and Weekend Services at Granger, bring your team to Innovate. You’ll find strategic and practical ways to explore innovation across the life of the church—in every ministry area. Register today for early-bird discounts and group rates!