The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.
That is one of the core convictions that drives the way we do ministry at National Community Church.
Creativity is part of the imago Dei. All you have to do is take one glance at God's green earth. I was watching Animal Planet the other day with my kids and discovered that entomologists have identified more than one thousand species of walking sticks (the insect, not the device used by ancient shepherds). That borders on creative overkill, but it reveals something about the personality of God. God loves variety. That is why each of us has a unique fingerprint, voiceprint, and eye print.
In the same sense, each of our congregations has a unique churchprint. Too often we cast a suspicious look at any church that is unlike our church instead of celebrating kingdom diversity. But every church is destined to be a unique expression of the Kingdom of God. We play different roles, but we're on the same team. And the truth of the matter is this: we need lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people.
When I first started pastoring National Community Church I was frustrated that God didn't outline an exact order of service in the New Testament. I wanted a church formula. I wanted God to tell me exactly what to do and how to do it. And then I realized why He didn't give us an over-the-counter prescription: it would have taken creativity out of the equation. There are certainly biblical principles that establish parameters for the way we lead our churches, but I also believe that there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet.
One of our central leadership tasks is cultivating a culture of creativity. And it is more than a leadership technique. It is a stewardship issue.
Loving God with your right-brain
I'm neither a brain surgeon nor the son of a brain surgeon, but my bookshelves are filled with books on neurology. Nothing in universe is more fascinating to me than the three pounds of gray matter housed within the human cranium. The human mind is the magnum opus of God's creative genius. Did you know that there are more neuronal connections in your brain than there are stars in the universe? According to Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Gerald Edelman, it would take more than 32 million years to count all the synapses in your brain if you counted at the rate of one per second.1 Translation: we are fearfully and wonderfully made.2
Neurologists sub-divide the brain into regions that are responsible for a variety of neurological functions. The visual cortex handles all input from the optic nerve. The posterior hippocampus stores spatial memory. And the medial ventral prefrontal cortex is the seat of humor. Whether you're humming a song, solving a Sudoku, or interpreting facial expressions; there is unique part of the brain that is responsible for performing those functions.
The brain is also divided into two hemispheres: the right-brain and left-brain. Those two hemispheres are connected by approximately 300 million nerve fibers called the corpus collosum. For what it's worth, the average woman has forty percent more connections between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. But don't feel too bad guys. You have twenty percent more bone density!
Think of the two hemispheres of the brain as parallel processors. They certainly overlap in function. And this is a gross simplification of something that is divinely complex. But the left-brain is the logical-half of the brain. And the right-brain is the creative-half of the brain.
Now juxtapose brain topography with Matthew 22:37: "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind."
Loving God with half your mind doesn't cut it. Half-minded is no better than half-hearted. But many leaders are trying to lead with half their brain tied behind their back. And it's about as effective as running on one leg, clapping with one hand, or twiddling one thumb!
Studies have shown that IQ is only responsible for between four to ten percent of career success.3 Don't get me wrong. We need to use our logical left-brain when it comes to sermon preparation and decision making. But creativity quotient (CQ) is often the difference between success and failure when it comes to pastoral leadership.
When I zoom out and look at church history, I see a focus on left-brain logic during the modern era. We took systematic theology in Seminary. We developed three-point sermons with alliterations in homiletics. And we learned how to put together an order of service in practical theology. And that's all fine and good. There is nothing wrong with a well thought out order of service. Our sermons ought to be logical. And we've got to develop our theological paradigms. But the future belongs to whole-brain leaders who combine right-brain creativity with their left-brain training.
Routinization
Here is one of the central tasks of pastoral leadership: keeping what is sacred from becoming routine.
I read a fascinating study a few years ago that suggested that we stop thinking about the lyrics of a song after hearing it thirty times. That has profound implications when it comes to worship. If we aren't careful, we stop worshiping in spirit and in truth and start lip syncing. Maybe that's why the Psalmist exhorts us eight times to sing a new song.
Maybe a central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?
Let me put the challenge in neurological context.
Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Longitudinal studies have shown that the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from right-to-left as we age. In other words, memory overtakes imagination. At some point, most of us stop imagining the future and start repeating the past. Our leadership shift from right-to-left, and if we aren't careful, serving God becomes routine.
That neurological tendency has significant implications when it comes to pastoral leadership. How do we keep prayer from becoming an empty incantation? How do we keep Bible reading from becoming rote? How do we keep church from becoming nothing more than a religious obligation?
The element of surprise
We have a core value at National Community Church: expect the unexpected. That value is based on a cross-section of gospel episodes that reveal the creative leadership style of Jesus. Jesus always had a surprise up his sleeve. I think the disciples lived in a state of perpetual shock at the things Jesus did. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, walked on water, threw a temple tantrum, cursed a fig tree, partied with tax collectors, talked with Samaritans, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. In other words, Jesus was predictably unpredictable and that is one reason why the Pharirazzi wanted to kill him. He was too unorthodox for their linear and logical left-brains, but he did capture the right-brain imagination of the masses.
I think we grossly underestimate just how unconventional Jesus was. And the question is this: are we following in his leadership footsteps?
One of our prime objectives at National Community Church is to keep church from becoming routine. And I think that is one reason why 71 percent of our regular attenders come from an unchurched or dechurched background.
We try to overcome routinization in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is as simple as changing our order of service. We'll do responsive worship following a message instead of preparatory worship before a message. We'll often turn our movie theater screen into postmodern stained glass and use videos to communicate the gospel story in moving pictures. And we try to celebrate communion in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we'll serve communion in trays, but other times we'll put the elements in a small canvass communion bag that attenders receive on the way into church. Or we'll have people write out a confession and nail it to the cross before taking communion. Our goal is to make communion a fresh experience every time we come to the Lord 's Table.
One Sunday we did away with our normal service all together. Instead of sitting in one theater for an entire service, we set up a message theater, worship theater, and communion theater and let people go on a self-paced, self-guided journey. That Journey Sunday was slightly awkward for regular attenders, but that is healthy.
Part of right-brain leadership is throwing an occasional change-up or curve ball to keep people on their toes. And that can be as simple as moving the piano, changing your staging, or giving your bulletin an extreme makeover.
Change of perspective
A few years ago I came up with a personal formula for creativity: change of pace + change of place = change of perspective.
Just this week I took our team to the National Cathedral in Northwest DC for an offsite meeting. I've found that it is difficult to be creative when I'm in my regular environment and regular routine, but a change of pace or place can help us think new thoughts.
Isn't that why retreats and mission trips are such powerful vehicles for quantum change? They involve a change of pace and change of place. Maybe the key to spiritual growth isn't getting people to come to church one more time each week? Maybe the key is keeping the routine from becoming routine.
Here is the catch-22. Routines are the key to spiritual growth. We call them spiritual disciplines. But when those routines become routine we become pharisaical. We learn how and forget why. We fall into the trap of routinization and stop loving God with our right-brains.
Right-brain leaders know their job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Comforting the afflicted requires mercy. Afflicting the comfortable requires imagination and lots of patience.
I'm not going to lie: creativity is hard work. It is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. But creativity is also what keeps ministry from becoming monotonous.
May your imagination overtake your memory!