The Harry Potter Experience
On the Friday night that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, my wife and I went to a Barnes and Noble in the Twin Cities area aroung 10:45 pm. It was amazing. Cars flooded the parking lot. We had to park quite some distance from the store in a grocery store lot. There were kids, teenagers, and adults all waiting for the new book to ceremoniously releasesd. There was a dance. There was reading. There was a scavanger hunt. There was direction. There was anticipation. There was creativity from whatever they staff had on hand in the store to transform into something related to the debut of the final book. It was crazy. It was different. It was cool. Once again. Do we work that hard on Sunday mornings? Do we want those who come whether kids, teenagers, or adults, to have an awesome experience? Or…do we just figure that they should come already ready? Barnes and Nobels thought a number of people would come ready. They also thought they needed to do what they could to provide an experience to help people get into it. An intergration of both.
It is very hard on a church level to create that kind of creativity and display as in the displays at Barnes and Noble for the Harry Potter books.
I have only seen those kind of displays during Vacation Bible Study and then it is immediately torn down. Another example that I saw was a banner stating “Win a Wi!” in front of a church. It is sad that to grow their church that they have to resort to such commercialism as that.
I hope that all goes well in growing your church. Remember, God will lead them to you in His perfect timing, not ours.
God Bless.
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