WORSHIP. PERIOD.

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

“Obscurity gives life to exponentially more creativity than popularity does. Don’t fight being ignored. Treat it as a lab” – Jon Acuff (Stuff Christians Like)

30 years ago this week a Canadian hero started his famous run across Canada in support of Cancer research. Thing is, Terry Fox wasn’t a Canadian hero when he started his run.

If you look at some of the old footage and see how little attention and focus Terry’s “Marathon of Hope” was garnering on day one, it almost seems ridiculous given what we know now. Something like 4000+ miles from Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario and half a billion dollars raised (as part of the annual Terry Fox Runs) later, he’s a household name and a frequent statue. But he didn’t start with any of that, he started with a worthy cause and a truck-load of passion. He was committed to his cause and it didn’t matter who did or didn’t believe and who was or wasn’t watching, he was going to do it. His passion and determination eventually drew the attention we all see today.

This is a reminder some of us worship leaders need from time to time. Ok, maybe it’s just me. I’m going to continue anyway. Sometimes the temperature of the modern worship movement today can make widespread recognition an appealing prospect. Record deals, worship conferences and concerts…it seems like success can be measured by acclaim.

Don’t fall for it. Keep Reading.

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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?

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What’s our response to the devastation in Haiti? How do we approach God in the shadow of the all the destruction, despair and hopelessness? How do we worship; How do we lead worship?

I say we follow the Haitians’ lead.

Listen to Wyclef as he recounts his experience in his home country in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Unexplainable? No. Just ‘spirit and truth’ worship.

(For more on worship in the midst of grief, check out this earlier post.)

I tend to talk a lot about the idea of “full-orbed worship”. By that I mean a worship that is complete and doesn’t end when the song does. It’s something most of us say and generally accept at its base level, I think. We quote Romans 12 and say, “I want to live a life of worship,” and stuff like that. That being said, I think that when pressed for details it’s tougher to nail down and explain than we’d think.

I stumbled across this and I think Mark Driscoll does a pretty good job at summarizing the concept in this short video clip.

What do you think?

So now you can go to church online. I’m a big fan of Craig Groeschel’s – his book “It” has made a big splash at our church – and his LifeChurch.tv and other online church experiences are certainly making waves in both cyberdom and Christendom. Here’s a news clip I snagged from @loswhit (Ragamuffin Soul) about it:

So what do you think? I’d tell you what I think, but I don’t know what I think yet. I do know that I can hear echoes of the voices of reason talking about a few obvious problems or obstacles for this model, be it lack of community or the problem of individualism…that kind of stuff. But I also know that they’re not claiming perfection and ministry is messy sometimes. Goodness knows, if we sat around and waited for the perfect model without flaw, we’d still be waiting. Is there a point we just need to get out there and start trying stuff because the stakes are so high?

Any thoughts?

How often would you say you take risks in your worship leadership?

I guess maybe I need to define what I mean by risk in this case. When I say taking a risk in leading worship I’m referring to those times you get an idea for your worship event or service that makes you immediately want to reach for the Rolaids. You get nervous and excited at the same time. Your mind starts firing a flip-book of reasons this idea could go off the rails and crash, but your gut keeps pushing it. Maybe it’s as simple as a song choice, a different music style, or a spoken word/drama. Maybe it’s a complete deviation from your typical order of service. Maybe it’s a media element. Maybe it’s even a strong word you feel you need to share with your congregation.

The common theme in the risk I’m referring to is the presence of these competing thoughts: “It could be really good, or it could go really bad.” Been there? I was there this week. After being reminded of some things concerning these risks I thought I’d share what I’m learning about the importance of venturing into this scary territory occasionally.
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I don’t know how many of you do live video in your services out there. Here on Canada’s east coast where congregations (and budgets) are on the smaller side we don’t see it as often, but for those of you who do or who plan to at some point, here’s a neat “director’s eye view” from the booth at Buckhead Church.