Here’s an interesting and entertaining post from a cool site called Shrink the Church. Do you remember all of these stages they’re reminiscing about? Were you guilty of any of them? I must admit to contributing to the cliche a number of times.
It’s entertaining to take a self-deprecating look back at some of the stylistic choices we’ve made in the worship leading milieu – especially in the context of the stuff that doesn’t really matter, like music style and hair product. But what about the things that do matter, as referenced in the closing paragraph of the aforementioned post? How have you evolved as a worship leader over time? How have you grown? Take some time to look back at the journey God’s taken you on as you’ve endeavored to be used by Him to lead His people in worship. Feel free to share with the rest of the class!
We’re creative beings as humans. Afterall, we’re patterned after The Ultimate Creator. You don’t have to look or listen very far to find examples. Heck, you should see the systems I come up with to carry laundry downstairs and avoid 2 trips. Laziness is the mother of creativity, or something like that.
That being said, sometimes we hit a creative wall. I’m sure you’ve been there. You sit there with your guitar and all that comes out is G – D/F# – Em – C over and over…you keep rhyming “tree”, “me” and “thee” repeatedly until they don’t sound like words anymore…or maybe after “Lost”, “Heroes” and “Grace Anatomy”, you’ve run out of TV shows to rip off for your sermon series branding. Happens to the best of us.
So what do you do to reignite some creativity? One humble suggestion I would make is to change your perspective. We tend to get into ruts and routines that slowly build fences around our creative ability. For example, my fingers are usually in the shape of a G chord before I even get a hold of the neck – it’s just kind of my default. Like I alluded to earlier, we tend to fall into patterns that we know, or even more so, rules that we’ve agreed to. If I start on a G, well the next chords have to either a C, D, Am7, Em, etc. That’s just how it is. I’m not saying free yourself by casting off all musical theory and become a improv jazz player or anything. Just try something to make yourself look at your instrument or creative situation/challenge from a different perspective. Maybe it means fooling around on an instrument you don’t know how to play. Chances are you’ll see it in a way that others who are trained on it don’t. You won’t be stuck with preconceived assumptions of how to use the instrument – you’ll be driven by results…how does it sound?
I’ve got a couple examples of people who look at common things a bit differently. First up: Bobby McFerrin. Remember “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”? Well, if that’s you’re only experience with this dude, you’re missing out. Let’s just say when Bobby thinks about singing and the human voice, he thinks about it with an entirely different set of assumptions and rules than I do. Exhibit A – Check this out (this is all one dude, one voice, one mic, live):
Pretty cool, right? Something tells me when he started his journey musically, he didn’t think about his voice with the same fences that most of us do. Sure it likely took decades of trial and error and relentless practice on some counts, but the point is he was willing to try stuff and most importantly must’ve been ok with looking stupid while he experimented. How often do you let yourself go and risk the ridiculous in your creative process?
Now you can follow worshipperiod.com on your phone with the handy-dandy new W.P. iPhone app! You can access the latest updates to the site via your Apple cellular telephone device with the tap of a finger – and it’s all free!
(Just don’t use it while driving, we don’t want Oprah coming after us.)
Wanted to say a big thanks to The Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches for featuring Worship Period on their website (you can read the article here). The support is much appreciated and here’s to hoping worship and creative types across the Atlantic Provinces will continue to join the conversation and find some value here!
Here’s an interesting and entertaining post from a cool site called Shrink the Church. Do you remember all of these stages they’re reminiscing about? Were you guilty of any of them? I must admit to contributing to the cliche a number of times.
Hey iPhone users!
