Not a boring mattress commercial

We've all heard those commercials:

"104% of adults don't get enough sleep, so you need our mattress."

"If a hockey fight breaks out on the other side of the bed from you, our mattress is so stable, you'll never feel a thing."

"All the cool kids are buying our mattresses."

Blah blah blah.

 
Thanks to a very generous anonymous donation to the church, we were able to snag a great deal on a week of year-end radio advertising. I recorded a spot today that will air on all of the top 5 secular radio stations across Clarksville next Monday-Friday. The ad starts with the ticking of a clock and a loud alarm clock. One of the lines in the spot says, "This is not another boring mattress commercial and I'm not going to tell you how sleep-deprived you are..." I went on to say that although we need plenty more physical sleep, it's the opposite spiritually - we don't need any! Unfortunately, that's where most people spend the majority of their lives - asleep to the things of God.
Awaken is out to change that.


One person asked me, "Why advertise on secular stations instead of the Christian station?" Simple answer: target audience. We love Christians and want to pack the church with Christians, but our main target is not Christians - it's the rest of Clarksville - the unChristians, if you will. They're probably not listening to "Christian" music, so we're tuning into their channel. One day we may advertise on a Christian station, but we're not there yet.

Pray that the ads reach the right people and that people who normally don't want anything to do with church want to come check it out.

If you want to listen to the ad, you could listen to 94.3, 97.5, 100.3, 107.9FM or 540AM here in Clarksville simultaneously on 5 different radios for hours on end next Monday through Friday and hope to hear it. Or for a much easier approach, go to our website and click play on the link in the bottom right corner. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

On a side note, I asked them to air the ad right after a boring mattress commercial. I don't think they'll be doing that.

"Hey everybody, look at me!"

That's what our new billboard is screaming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next month. Maybe not audibly, but hopefully graphically.

I've been eying this billboard location since we moved here, but it's been taken...until this weekend. It's in a prime location: exactly 1 mile from the church (according to Google maps), across the street from the college campus, in a very busy part of downtown, plus, it's in a school zone, which means that for a large portion of each week day, people have to drive 20 mph past our billboard. Nice.

I've done a lot of design over the last 5 or 6 years of my life. I've designed websites, fliers, business cards, t-shirts, sickers, buttons, logos, but this is my first billboard. I like it. It's fun designing something on the computer then seeing it on display for the whole city to see in a very large format.

It seems weird at first thought to pray for a billboard, but that's what I've been doing. As simple as a large piece of vinyl plastered to a big metal sign is, it's also an opportunity to spark an interest in the hearts of passers-by. I love that God can use something simple like this to grab their attention. Ultimately, though, the goal is to get them to come to the church and from there, we pray that God rocks their world. Join us in prayer that God would use this simple form of media to change people for eternity.

Wanna see some more pics? Of course you do. Click HERE.