We designed a service once with a youth pastor colleague on the subject of racial reconciliation. As we began designing the service, our youth pastor colleague, Efrem, an African-American, shared a personal story about his time at a small (mostly Caucasian) Christian college. Early on as he familiarized himself with his new surroundings, he was taken back by some of the art in one of the buildings on campus. A very large mural depicting heaven filled one the cathedral ceilings.

Efrem scanned the painting back and forth and was disturbed by what he saw. This representation of heaven left something or rather someone out. It was filled only with European-looking white guys in the typical angelic poses. He wrestled with this painting as he asked himself, ?ÄúDo I fit into a heaven like that??Äù His internal response was, ?ÄúI don?Äôt think this is what heaven will look like at all. All who believe will dwell there together, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.?Äù

The basis for his sermon was that if segregation has no place on heaven, and we will live there together in harmony, then we should strive to do the same on earth. That led us to the theme of ?ÄúA Preview of Heaven,?Äù and the metaphor of movie previews. Just like trailers give the viewer a sense of what the upcoming movie will be like before they see it, so should our earthly expression of the kingdom of God give the world a preview of heaven, where no one is excluded.

We created an animation to start worship that mimicked the style of the cheesy clips that run between the trailers and the feature, filled with dancing refreshments, crying babies and ringing cell phones. The sanctuary was decked out with theater decorations (including a row of theater seats on stage) and we served popcorn to worshipers as they entered the room. The worship graphics had a movie preview theme. It all went off without a hitch.

Six months passed and a woman from our congregation came to Jason and said, ?ÄúJason, I?Äôve got to tell you something. You?Äôve ruined my movie going experience.?Äù She went on to explain, ?ÄúIt?Äôs actually a good thing. Every time I go to the movies now, and I see that cheesy animation that runs before the movie starts, I leave the theater with a renewed passion for living a preview for heaven on Earth.?Äù

We were blown away when we heard this. We knew metaphors made the message easier to understand, but until then, we never quite realized how it helped worshipers recall the message, with a certain degree of depth, even a long time later.

We?Äôve also learned that when we use metaphors from the culture, and we really do the hard work of redeeming them, the culture becomes a reminder of the Gospel. This means that the Gospel becomes inescapable, because culture is inescapable.

The third reason we recommend metaphor as a key part of the design process, and maybe the most important reason, is that it was the model Jesus gave us. Mark 4 tells us a story from the early part of Jesus?Äô public ministry, in which he tells the parable of the sower. It?Äôs a long parable, the longest in the Gospels (vv. 3-9). Afterward, when the crowds had left and the disciples were alone with Jesus, they revealed to him that they had no clue what he had been saying. He took the time to explain the entire parable to them, actually spending more time on the explanation than he had on the parable itself (vv. 10-20).

What is really interesting is what happens next. Instead of concluding that such a creative presentation of the Good News didn?Äôt work, and returning to the religious style he had learned in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52), he continued to speak in parables, telling the parables of lamp on the stand (vv. 21-25), the growing seed (vv. 26-29), and the mustard seed (vv. 30-32). He was on a roll!

The best moment comes in verses 33 and 34: ?ÄúWith many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.?Äù

Parables were Jesus?Äô exclusive public style! He didn?Äôt simply use parables as an alternative for the dumb ones in the crowd. Metaphorical teaching was his only public method. Jesus understood that to communicate ideas with effectiveness he had to present his teaching in a means that made sense to his audience. Our audiences today aren?Äôt any different. People listen best when spoken to in a familiar language. This is the essence of metaphor.

So, metaphor is how we define ourselves. The same is true in design. No longer is it sufficient to present text through creative treatments; now, the best designs use visual metaphor to communicate basic ideas and thoughts. The presence of metaphor is what separates good design from bad, because it is the primary means with which we can express creativity.

How does this translate into designing graphics for worship? This is a question that we?Äôre still learning to answer as we go, too. No one?Äôs got this future figured out yet. The advertising industry is in a panic because one of its key target audiences, the 18-34 yr old male, is so attuned to interactive technologies such as TiVo that they are choosing to delete or ignore traditional advertising (known as features and benefits, or F&B, ads) because they?Äôre ?Äúboring?Äù?Äîi.e., they don?Äôt communicate through metaphor. David Art Wales of Ministry of Culture, a New York advertising consulting firm, says, ?ÄúThere?Äôs a huge lure to obscurity. That?Äôs one of the keys?Äîgiving people something to discover, which is the antithesis of the way most advertising works.?Äù

As you begin to design, look for ways to communicate ideas through visual metaphors. Tap into your creativity. Think about visual equivalents. Avoid doctrinal words and move toward experiential words and objects. Brainstorm about everything from current pop culture references to pithy sayings. And stay away from bullets, because bullet points are best left to BULLET-ins.

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