After five record-breaking books and three successful movies, Harry Potter has secured his seat among the most beloved heroes of youth pop culture. But with the recent release of author J.K. Rowling's sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, some in the church are still unsure what to make of the winsome wizard. Many church leaders, including Pope Benedict, have condemned Harry Potter, but at least one church, in a controversial move, embraced him. Their example raises a larger question: To what extent should the church embrace popular culture in order to reach lost people?

Kelly and Tosha Williams started Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs eight years ago with the goal of using popular culture to attract people to Christ. But when the church created a vacation Bible school based on the Harry Potter books in 2003, they attracted a lot of media attention and criticism. With the release of the newest Potter book, their VBS story was told again on national television. So we spoke with Tosha Williams, creator of the "Potter Project" at Vanguard, about the issue of using popular culture to accomplish the church's mission.

Where did the idea to use Harry Potter for your children's ministry originate?
I read an article about the church in New Mexico that was doing a Harry Potter book burning, and I told my husband that it would be more effective to use Harry Potter books to reach kids rather than burn them. From there God really convicted me that we needed to use Harry Potter as a bridge to reach kids with the gospel.

What did the "Potter Project" entail?
I spent about a year pulling together the curriculum using themes from the Book of John and aligning them with themes from the first three Harry Potter books. The aim was to teach kids the difference between good and evil, and ultimately to teach them about Christ.

We organized it into a really big one-day event on President's Day when the kids were out of school, followed by six weeks of smaller events. The teachers were dressed as wizards, and the church was entirely decorated with darkened rooms and glow-in-the-dark props, and we renamed hot dogs "goblin fingers." I have never seen children so excited about a church event, just absolutely mesmerized. It was an awesome opportunity for our church.

How did your church's leaders and families respond when they heard your idea? Was it a difficult sell?
I had to explain it to them, and I knew they would see it as an off-the-wall idea. But we started the church eight years ago with the goal of reaching people in unusual ways, so our leaders were comfortable with different ideas. I felt that if God didn't want the Potter Project to happen he would work through the leadership of our church to shut it down. But after the elders took a week or two to pray about it they approved it.

There were some families within our church, including some very close friends, who supported us and appreciated the outreach, but they weren't ready for their children to be introduced to Harry Potter. And that was fine because our goal was not to introduce church kids to Harry Potter, but to introduce kids who were familiar with Harry Potter to Christ. But, the outpouring of support from our church overall was great.

Did you get negative responses from people outside your church?
Absolutely. They hunted me down. There was a lot of misunderstanding about what we were doing from the wider Christian community. Many thought we were endorsing witchcraft. We weren't doing that at all. We were using Harry Potter themes and characters to draw analogies and teach kids spiritual truths about Christ and the gospel. We really felt like the Potter Project was what God wanted us to do, so we shouldered the criticism from the Christian community.

How did you respond to your critics who believe Harry Potter endorses witchcraft?
We have tried to respond graciously. Although our methods are different than other Christians', our goal is the same—to see people come to Christ. We were simply doing what we believe God was calling us to do. Obviously the people who burned the books felt they were doing God's will also. How God reconciles it all I don't know, but we did not want to be divisive.

Do you have plans for another Potter Project? What's next for Vanguard's children's ministry?
We don't have any Harry Potter plans right now, but I totally see our church picking up the idea again. Right now the book series "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is very popular with children, and we could do something with that theme.

The Potter Project generated a lot of publicity for the church, but our goal is not to use off-the-wall ideas to create publicity. Our heartbeat is to reach people with the gospel. And we believe that when we speak their language, just like Paul did in Acts 17, people will listen. We want to use culture effectively to reach people for Christ.

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