Take a look at this commercial.
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
It’s the power of the unexpected, the second hallmark of communication that sticks. I posted about Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made To Stick on Monday.
Any time communication — whether a television ad or Sunday morning sermon — is predictable, it loses its impact.
That’s why we try to do things in Sunday worship and Sunday messages that you don’t expect. So in recent weeks and months:
- We gave out 2000 CDs at the end of worship on Easter Sunday;
- We started a worship service with an instrumental version of Pink Floyd’s Money;
- I played Do Lord on guitar at the start of a sermon before trying to play the opening riff of Walk This Way. All that was to demonstrate inadequacy!
- I took out my contact lenses in the middle of a message. And put them back in. Three times. Praise the Lord, it worked.
- We gave out breath mints to launch our Things Jesus Never Said series.
I suspect no one attending Good Shepherd on those Sundays expected any of those things to happen. We hope that made them all the more memorable.
That’s why we do what we do.