#18: (tie) Losing My Religion AND The Alternative Lifestyle
After 10 years of Forefront we’ve now done over 120 message series. Thought it might be fun and interesting to share with you my top twenty.
We do a lot of topical series at Forefront, but usually a couple times a year we’ll study through a book of the Bible, or through the life of a person in the Bible. Both of these series were based on books of the Bible.
Losing My Religion was a study of the book of Galatians. Obviously we stole the name from R.E.M., but they stole the idea from God. So many people show up at church on Sunday looking to get some religion, but God wants us to lose our religion. Religion is about rules and regulations. God is about relationship. Religion makes us a slave to a master. God wants us to be children of a Father. Religion is focused on me (“I can’t do this.” “I have to do that.” “Have I met my obligations?”). God wants us to focus on Him (“I’m not going to do this because I love God.” “I get to do that for God!” “It’s cool how God gives me these opportunities.”). Galatians is like the Emancipation Proclamation for Christians, and it was fun getting to declare that each Sunday.
The Alternative Lifestyle was a study through the book of Philippians. The idea is that today there is all kinds of talk about alternative lifestyles – people who choose to be counter-cultural and live out of the norm. But really the true Christian lifestyle is about as counter cultural as it gets. Philippians really shows that – the idea of intentionally choosing to take downward steps and become a servant to all, and rejoicing even your life is in the crap hole, and being content no matter what. Wow.
We always do creative pieces for our series, and “The Alternative Lifestyle” featured two couch potatoes (they were literally potatoes sitting on a couch, we gave them faces and voices and personalities, and had them move through claymation-like magic) who were experimenting with different alternative lifestyles. I thought it was way creative on our part, but I’m pretty sure most of the people at Forefront just found it offensive and that no one ate potatoes for at least a year afterward.
– featured on newchurches.com