What Churches Can Learn From Lost, Pt. 1

This is a guest post from Dave Sandell. This is the first in a two-part series.

The Audience Experience

Tonight, Lost begins its final season, 18 hours that will consummate a television series that’s changed the way people think about the medium.  For the next two days, I want to look at two things churches can learn from Lost. Tomorrow, as we buzz about the ramifications of whatever we see tonight, we’ll discuss what we can learn from the creative process of the show. Today, I want to think about Lost‘s audience experience, and what it could mean for a church.

Lost crafted the ultimate user experience where whatever you were willing to put into the show was what you got out of it.  If you just wanted to watch each episode and leave it at that, you were treated to a compelling narrative driven by characters responding to an increasingly unfamiliar world.  The show tackled themes of science vs. faith, racism, and redemption for unredeemable people.

But if you wanted to go deeper, you could.  I, along with millions of others, immersed myself in the message boards, podcasts and blogs, where people would dissect each episode, systematically looking for clues and geeking out over theories about what was next.  And there was yet another level available to those who had the time and means: online games, book tie-ins, conventions and much, much more.

Could Churches Create a Similar “Lost” Experience?

As a pastor, I write a sermon that I spend months preparing for and hours writing, but 30 minutes into our Sunday evening service, it’s out there and largely done with.  Perhaps someone will grab the podcast, but only the very best sermons will compel a second listen.  I would love the type of response that Lost inspires: To have this flock of people really wrestle with what we’re creating, to have people respond to our hearts being poured out each Sunday afternoon with huge decisions to change their life.

What would multiple layers of content look like?

To begin with, our sermons and messages would need to be the start of the conversation instead of the end of the conversation.  At our new church service, Greenhouse, we’re creating sermons that focus on big paradigms and worldviews, and we leave the day-to-day “how is this going to affect me?” questions for another outlet. By not dictating how people will live out the messages we’re preaching, we leave it up to individuals to do some work.  We give starting points, and offer suggestions on what that might look like, but we’re creating direct streams into follow-up chewing and wrestling.

To facilitate that, we provide questions to go deeper in our Sunday program.  These questions are written with a small group discussion in mind, but could be used by any community you find yourself in – with a spouse, a roommate, co-workers – or, they could be tackled in a personal devotional setting.

But now we’re thinking about what the next layer looks like.  Online discussions on Facebook, blogs, our web site and Twitter.  Post-service dinners and stories told on stage by people who have made big choices based on their own working out of the themes we’re talking about.

What else could a church do to create the ultimate audience experience?