One of my new favorite magazines is Collide. Its byline is "where the church and media converge." It is edited admirably by Scott McClellan. For anyone like me who wants to use the best media tools within the church to tell the gospel message, Collide is a must read.
While reading yesterday I came across this interview with Chris Seay, pastor of Ecclesia in Houston, Texas. Chris is also the author of a new book entitled, The Gospel According to LOST. Naturally with our current sermon series, LOST, I was intrigued. Here's part of the description of the book from Amazon:
The focus on faith and truth is never more clearly explained than in the words of John Locke as he questions Jack Shepherd asking "Why do you find it so hard to believe?" Jack responds quickly "Why do you find it so easy?" But Locke declares "It's never been easy." This tension between Faith and Reason drives every episode and story line. Locke summed this up as he explained to Jack "That's why you and I don't see eye‐to‐eye sometimes, because you're a man of science…Me, well, I'm a man of faith."
Even though he authored the book, Chris says he doesn't attempt to write entire sermon series out of pop culture, preferring to preach through books of the Bible. But Chris tells Collide Magazine that he does like to use pop culture references like the LOST television show in his sermons:
I draw from it [pop culture] a lot, in a more natural style, like what I picture Jesus doing when he walked through the fields and said, “Look at the crops. Let me explain to you what’s going here in terms of reaping and sowing.” I think that’s what we’re called to do as teachers, just with everyday life. We have to use the things around us to explain the things of God, and Jesus was so good at that.
Clearly, the gospel dwells within the culture, and so we’ve got to be people that see the signposts and call people into conversations and call them toward truth. Pop culture is part of that, but it can’t be the whole thing. If you teach Lost and you don’t get to the gospel part or to Scripture, you’re just running in the circles of a postmodern narrative, which is not what I feel called to.
Clearly I don't have any problems designing sermon series on top of cultural references. But anyone who has heard me preach knows that I use the pop culture for a launching pad to get into the Biblical lessons.
One of the other things I loved about the Collide Magazine interview with Chris Seay was the artwork. The paintings above were created by talented artist, Scott Erickson. What you see above is just a sampling of the artwork, so get over to Collide or to Scott's Flickr page to check out the rest of Scott's LOST paintings.
