Radiant Church Goes Hip Hop

My good friend Lee McFarland leads one of my favorite churches in the country out in Phoenix. Radiant Church is not your normal church, and Lee is not your normal pastor. They embrace a bizarre mix of wanting to reach as many people for Jesus and willingness to try just about anything. With that, Radiant recently launched a Saturday night service incorporating hip hop elements.

Here are some highlights of what they’re doing:

• The music is done by their “Garage Band”–it’s basically the student ministry band.
• footklan.com (a local dance group) participated in the service on the debut weekend.
• Travis, one of the other staff pastors, is teaching at this service.  He’s doing a series on the book of Acts. It’s very different teaching than what’s happening in the other three services.
• They “renovated” their smallest service (Saturday 6:15) by replacing it with the new hip hop format and instantly more than doubled their attendance.  That’s helping them create more space on Sunday mornings.
• The whole ambiance of the room is changed for the service. The lighting is much darker. Small blue floor lights are placed under aisle chairs. They’ve added colorful canned lights on stage. Everyone sits in front half of the worship center. They’ve created a really intimate, connected feeling.
• The worship is much more intense than the other services.  It lasts longer, and it starts back up at the end of the service. That’s very different than Radiant’s other services.

It’s hard to say what’s really helping Radiant reach more people on Saturday nights. Is it because they’ve added hip hop elements? Or, is it simply because they’re doing something different? In my experience, different creates buzz. And, when there’s buzz, more people are talking about it and inviting their friends.

That makes me curious to know what you’ve recently done that’s different. What did you do, and what was the response?