Weekend Teaching Series: Backward$: week 1
Sermon Title: Good for Your Heart
Sermon in a Sentence: Learning to give is a backwards way of thinking.
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7 out of 10

Attendance: Down 1% from the previous weekend, up 120% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 71 minutes
Understandable Message: Doug Fields taught this weekend on giving. He went after how giving is good for our hearts and asked what the world would look like if we were more generous. The world offers one message – get more and more, consume, get, must have – our life becomes a quest for stuff. But Jesus offers a backward way of thinking about money and giving it all, and yourself, away. He used this great SNL clip about debt to kick off the message, too.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: The band and choir doubled as greeters and ushers. Other students ran the cameras and one student made a promo video for camp as well. I grabbed a few students to pass out bulletins and pens during the message, and they also helped hand out stuff at the end, too. A great band (led by a couple of seniors) and the choir always adds extra energy, too.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We played “Who Wants to Be a Hundredaire” – bringing a contestant on stage and having them work through some interesting questions on money. We did an “Ask the Audience” lifeline using PollEverywhere.com that was fantastic as well. Taffy’s funny Killball Cup video played strong, too.

Music Playlist: Gone, With Everything, Everything, Your Love is Strong

Favorite Moment: We did several baptisms this weekend – four students from a local high school all got baptized on the same night, surrounded by tons of their classmates cheering them on. Epic.

Next up: Backward$ week 2 (series finale)