Immediately after that “out of the norm” concert, we received some flak from church leaders who accused us of being “worldly.” “They were bringing the nightclub into the church,” was their allegation against us. Those really were the days.

Yet, it is ironic that most churches today would not conduct their services without a band of musicians playing electronic musical equipment and worship leaders imitating what is current in Gospel music.

Well, it seems that there is today a “nightclub” (to use the same analogy) in almost every church and that is perfectly acceptable? Modern worship music is not just the norm. It is the key to survival for most churches. Who would stay with one that is not singing the latest worship songs? And the latest and greatest worship songs today are those that sound like the hits of the 80s and 90s. Hey, we are still ten years behind!

It used to be that in medieval times, the Church led in music, art, literature, and the aesthetics. Those great composers, artists, painters, sculptors, poets, and authors were creating for the glory of God and pushing the envelope. The scene somehow changed with the Enlightenment and the Reformation and we became more rational, intellectualized, and cerebral in beliefs and behaviors and less emotive, imaginative, and creative.

We are ministering in the 21st century – a time of sound bytes, images, amusement, experience, and feeling good. How embarrassing that a people and an institution that worships the Creator is often devoid of creativity. The Church should be the world’s most creative organization. Yet, “We’ve never done it that way here before” seems to be our mantra when it comes to ministry expressions.

Why are we not creative anymore? Perhaps in doing church and ministry, we need to overcome some mental blocks.

Mental Block #1 Fear of Change

Like any other institution, we have the tendency to slip into a maintenance mode. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” seems to be the course of least resistance. I recall that for the longest time, a certain denomination was holding its traditional Sunday evening Gospel service every week. It became apparent that most of the people who showed up were the converted and even they grew tired of it. But as we all know, sacred cows are hard to remove. That weekly Sunday evening Gospel service eventually died a natural death when attendance kept dwindling.

Coupled with this fear of change, we tend to suspect those who are gifted, imaginative, and creative. They are seen as different from ordinary and normal people. They appear to be somewhat eccentric. And in our church mentality, what is weird is to be avoided.

We live in a world of exponential change. Society and culture are changing. Values are shifting. People are changing. To be sure, we have the same unchanging mandate to go out and preach the Gospel. Jesus did not specify how we should do it. In response to changes and challenges that are molding how the postmodern person is like, we must adjust the how we should do it. We die for the message but not for the method. Change does not destroy tradition. In fact, an institution guarantees its continuity by adapting to changes.

We all “do church” following a series of procedures and prescriptions. Most of them are assumptions, not written down anywhere. If it is a tradition, is it valuable, meaningful, or just the way it has always been done? Remember: tradition is suggestion, not law.

Mental Block # 2 Fear of Failure

Any church or organization with a reputation for innovation will readily admit that not everything they have tried worked. A church I worked with in Amsterdam many summers ago tried to reach out to the immigrant restaurant workers in the city with the idea of opening a coffee house for these workers to hang out. The church social hall was transformed into a makeshift coffee house during the day. That was before Starbucks became a global brand. It was a cool idea but the opening hours were not conducive for these people. We discovered later that the best time was midnight after the restaurant closed. That was when they would spend their time in gambling or other nocturnal activities. Of course, running a midnight coffee shop in church was not everyone’s cup of coffee (tea). But at least the church had that innovative idea. When you try something new, there will be failure. But there will also be discovery. If the church, group or team works together enthusiastically on anything, they will at least learn teamwork.

Failure should not deter us from trying something for which we are not certain of the outcome. Taking risks (sensible ones) means just that. As corporate gurus are telling us, the key to success in today’s world is innovation and we need creative leadership. One “risky” event we tried was to hire a pub for a night and let Christians invite their colleagues and friends to an event featuring Christian rock bands. Everything else was normal for a night out in the pub – drinks and chatter except that the bands played both Christian and secular songs. It was a huge success in terms of the turnout. The yuppies, the young, and the hip were having a great time. The challenge was in sharing the Gospel to the bunch of noisy and busy revelers. I tried my level best to engage them but realized that it was not the most effective way for that occasion and audience. Did we fail? Well, not really. The non-Christians enjoyed the rest of the evening and probably went away with the impression that Christians were not boring and dull people! We could have communicated the Gospel through a more appropriate medium than having a speaker on stage (unless he is a comedian).

Mental Block #3 False Dichotomy between Secular and Sacred

This perception has led the Church to be suspicious of expressions that are considered secular and therefore “worldly.” After all, we are exhorted not to “love the world” (1 Jn 2:15). Many of us boomers grew up with that false dichotomy.

As young Christians, we were taught that movies were the source of immoral influence and therefore going to the cinema was not a spiritual thing to do. It was a place of abomination and by just being in there would be contaminating. A pastor we knew at that time was even reprimanded for making references to Charlton Heston’s movie “The Ten Commandments” in his teaching. What became confusing to us was the arrival of the TV set into our homes. How was it that watching TV was not sinful but visiting the cinema was?

Leonard Sweet in his book AQUA Church writes, “… many of our religious communities find visual delights highly suspect and murky.” In his words, we are “image-averse communities,” and as a result become unimaginative and uninteresting whereas the postmodern mind perceives in images, metaphors, and stories rather than theories and propositions.

Another example of this false dichotomy between the secular and the sacred is in the area of music. Barely twenty years ago, rock music was termed the “devil’s music.” The problem was not the music but the values and lifestyles of its purveyors. Rock music was associated with the drug-crazed culture of the 60s and therefore was an import from hell. Probably the now elderly British pop star Sir Cliff Richard helped to clear the air with his song, “Why should the devil have all the good music?”  Now we have Christian rock, rap, metal, country, blues, etc.

I am not advocating that everything different and out of the box is acceptable for ministry in the name of creativity. As the famous dictum of Marshall McLuhan states, “The medium is the message.” Expressions that are immoral, offensive, defamatory, and discriminatory are certainly out. But there is so much more we can do to articulate the Christian message and demonstrate the Christian life in creative, exciting, and meaningful ways.

The challenge before us is how to make the Gospel attractive without sacrificing its strict demand for obedient discipleship. How do we help Christians work out the multiple ramifications of following Jesus Christ in the postmodern world? Sounds impossible? Walt Disney said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” Did not God say that with Him, nothing is impossible?

Michael Tan is the Executive Vice-President of Eagles Communications. He likes to preach, write, play the guitar, and manage his staff!

References:
Sweet, Leonard. AQUA Church. Loveland: Group Publishing, 1999.