Several years ago, a generous church member invited me to go with him to watch a heavyweight fight in Las Vegas. I couldn’t help but notice the signs. They’re everywhere: big signs, little signs, blinking, flashing, moving signs, even talking signs. It was dazzling.
They don’t have a lot to say, but they definitely know how to say it, I thought.
It’s just the opposite in the church. We have everything to say, but we don’t always know how to say it. We fail to communicate God’s truth in a way that is both biblically based and culturally compelling. Consequently, many people view church as a dry, yawn-filled environment. And too many Christians, even church leaders, are just droning through life—doing the same thing the same way and expecting a unique result.
As a young person, I remember saying to myself, “If that’s what being a Christian leader is all about, then no thanks.”
Ten years ago I moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to begin a church. We started with core group that shared the same vision: to keep God’s unchanging truth the same, while communicating it in a radically different style. As we reached out to the people around us in creative ways, people we could never have dreamed of touching began attending. We wholeheartedly believe that, more than any other venue, creativity should be at its best when Christians are together within the context of the local church.
Creativity is biblical. In fact, it’s the fifth word in the Bible: “In the beginning, God created.” God invented creativity. He thought it up.
Jesus modeled it, always changing his approach. “He did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Matt. 13:34). He spoke from hillsides, boats, and beaches. He drew in the sand, turned over tables, picked up a coin, pointed to a sower, and set a child on his lap. Ultimately, he used the cross to communicate his love for us.
For us, it’s so tempting to fall into sameness. We ignore Christ’s example and do the same thing week after week, and people grow tired of it.
How can we claim to follow an innovative God and be so boring? The church must be creative because people need it. How will Christians grow and mature if the church is stuck in a rut?
Stoking the creative engine
Here’s an example of how the process works in our church.
In our community, lots of families go out of town for spring break, but the singles tend to stay home. And half our weekend attenders are single and in their twenties and thirties. So when I asked during a staff meeting, “What would be a good series topic for March?” someone suggested doing a series on spouse selection.
As we talked about it, someone pointed out that who you marry is the second most important decision of your life. Another person added that the series would be just as important to married couples who need to prepare their children. Everyone contributed, from the preschool department to business administration. In fact, I’ve realized that the most creative ideas often come from those who are not even remotely connected to the ministry we’re discussing.
We pulled out flip charts and laptops and began to write down ideas, beginning with what to call the series. (I believe that titles are too often overlooked, but they are your first chance to capture and hold someone’s attention, and should not be ignored.) We soon came up with “The Ulti-Mate,” God’s ultimate mate for your life.
From there we started sharing dating stories and listing biblical principles. By the end of the meeting, we had a solid concept and basic outline for an entire sermon series.
In a later meeting, our creative team, those responsible for the music and visual arts helped me frame the ideas into three messages.
For the first message, I wanted to talk about how people’s fallacies about dating are like nursery rhymes. for example, “Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock” illustrated how the incessant ticking of the biological clock causes both men and women to rush into a serious relationship before they’re ready for the commitment of marriage.
I was going to recite the rhymes myself at various points in the message, but one of the team suggested having children do it. That creative idea took a lot more work—finding children able and willing to get on stage at all three services, practicing, and coordinating how the rhymes would flow in concert with the message.
Aside from the audience “aahing” over the cute kids, having children recite the rhymes created a unique memory for listeners. The visual and emotional effect created an important connection between listener and message.
For the second weekend, we planned to discuss defective dating. The idea came up of comparing premarital sex to taking a car off-road. We have a pretty big stage at Fellowship Church, and I wanted to drive a car across it to illustrate the point. Our team’s response was, “Ed, driving a car on stage is a pretty tall order for just one point. Can you use it for the whole message?”
I went back to Starbucks, where I do much of my studying, and came up with several bad habits of ineffective daters. Each habit linked to a different part of the car: looking in the trunk illustrated finding the emotional baggage of the person you’re dating, looking behind the wheel symbolized finding out who’s driving (Jesus, or someone else?), taking the car off-road was a word picture of misusing God’s gift of sexuality.
Of course, we had to find a car. We wanted something luxurious and expensive to show that God has the ultimate spouse in mind for each person. A man who has been investigating Christianity and attending our my small group for a while owns a car dealership, so we called him up to see what he could do. The next day he brought a new Mercedes 500 SL to the church. He said he was thrilled to help.
Creative cramming
Beware: creativity can have a dark underbelly. If not kept in its proper place, it can spin wildly out of control. And even with the best intentions, problems will occur and you will make mistakes. Accept that and don’t let fear of failure paralyze you. Learn from your mistakes and move forward. Here are a few of the cautions we keep in mind.
1. Help! Message overboard. This is by far the most dangerous pitfall. Creativity must be controlled by the rudder of relevant biblical truth. The Bible should drive our creativity; creative technique must not drive the biblical message. Biblically-driven teaching is the priority that never changes. I am motivated to be creative by seeing people come to Christ. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to top yourself, getting bigger and flashier, at the expense of your message.
If an idea doesn’t serve to underscore the theme, then it’s not necessary. If you have to explain it too much, then it’s probably a distraction, and best avoided.
2. Stranded in a sensory storm. It’s possible for a service to be too busy. Too many elements, even if they are all good ideas individually, generate a sensory storm that clouds the message.
Know when enough is enough and even cut back at times. Every so often— usually after a particularly multi-sensory weekend—we go back and do a simple, unadorned service. A basic meat-and-potatoes message will make the more creative services stand out.
3. Breaking the bank. It’s easy to get excited about creative ideas and start throwing cargo-holds of money at them, but it’s better to involve the people around you. When we had the sports car idea, we looked around for someone who had access to one rather than trying to rent one.
It’s a fallacy that you have to be a big church with lots of money to be creative. For eight years we met in rented facilities, where creativity was needed more. Plus, creativity can be more intimate in a smaller church. Since the audience can see a small object or photograph, a bigger visual is not necessarily a better one. When our church was smaller, we did a “Juicy Fruit” series on the fruit of the Spirit. We handed out pieces of the gum to illustrate the sweetness of spiritual fruit in your life.
4. A long day’s voyage. Creativity is fun. It turns boring routine into something challenging and exciting. At the same time, creativity is draining. The process of implementing a creative idea takes an enormous amount of time, thought, and energy. For me, there is nothing so demanding as thinking creatively. It requires both commitment and a tireless work ethic to take God’s truth from the complex to the simple.
5. Flee the shallows of creative sameness. It’s possible to get stuck in a rut even while being creative. Looking back, I can see that at times we floundered, doing the same “creative routine” every week—a drama during every service, playing the same style of music, in the same way, with the same order in the worship service. We needed to spice things up with something like a cello or the bagpipes.
6. Navigating without a map. Creativity naturally involves risk-taking, but make sure that what you do is culturally relevant and within moral and ethical bounds. I would not use certain words, phrases, or movie clips, no matter what kind of point it could make, because I don’t want to popularize something that promotes immorality. Given recent events, I would not fire a gun on stage, even with blanks. If you’re considering something that’s at all controversial, run it by some spiritually mature, trusted friends who will tell you the truth. Some illustrations, controversial or in poor taste, are not worth the fallout. As the leader, you must draw the ethical map, based on Scripture, and make the creative coordinates clear.
Worth the risks
Despise the dangers, creativity has been well worth the efforts.
I once wanted to do a series on animals of the Bible and why God included them in Scripture. At a staff meeting, I asked each person to research two or three animals and their significance.
The result was astonishing: I got reams of reports on animals. We called the series “Animal Planet.”
One message, “Camel Filter,” focused on Matthew 19:24—”it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” We found a camel, Harpo, and I was going to ride him through the auditorium and up on stage. Harpo refused to go in the church doors, so we taped me riding him through the parking lot and showed it on the side screens. (I suppose the illustration worked better that way, anyway.)
We kicked off the series with Pet-a-palooza, a community-wide event. Everyone brought their pets one Sunday after church. We had trainers and groomers, food and games, and a petting zoo. It was a great time.
Recently we challenged our core believers to be more evangelism- driven. We called it “Lifelines.” We decorated the stage like a ship, with a railing draped in ropes and an anchor at one side. We showed video clips of dramatic water rescues.
My point was that too many Christians are content to sit on the deck, soak up the rays, and work on their spiritual tan, while their friends are drowning all around them. Instead, we should be throwing out lifelines. We may be the only lifeline in their life. I told the members to look under their chairs. There each person found a Life Saver candy. It symbolized someone they knew who needed a lifeline. I said they could only eat it after developing a relationship with that person and seeing them accept Christ.
The message to be a lifeline is powerful by itself, but it becomes personal and memorable when linked by a creative illustration to actual people who need a Savior.
Getting started
Don’t be overwhelmed by the prospect of huge changes. Start with the little things.
For example, sometimes I speak sitting on a stool; sometimes I use a lectern; sometimes I use nothing at all. We rework the bulletin for every series, changing its size, shape, and color scheme. In a recent service led exclusively by our worship team, our worship guide was fashioned after a compact disc cover. Try changing the order of your worship service or get off the platform and walk the aisles during your message. Do whatever it takes to keep people interested in God’s Word.
A close friend of mine is a personal trainer. When we exercise together, he always changes the workout. We never do the same thing the same way twice.
I asked him, “Henry, why are we changing? One day it’s curls standing, the next day curls on my back. Why do you change it?”
“Ed, have you heard of the Confusion Principle?” he asked. “If you stay with the same workout, your muscles get used to it and stop growing. But, if you confuse them—work them in different ways—they’ll get stronger and grow.”
So I’ve tried to apply this principle in the church. Change the way the choir sings and at what time during the service they sing. Change the time you serve Communion. Maybe change your attire a little bit. Change the bulletin and use it as an outreach piece. I’m not talking about radical stuff now. Small tweaks will take you to giant peaks.
When people come to your church, they should be sitting on the edge of their seats saying, “What in the world are they going to do next?”
Ed Young pastors Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. www.fconline.org edy@fcmail.org
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