So to help infuse creativity into the chaos, here are five questions for worship leaders to ask as the songs are being chosen.  These are not meant to strap you in, but to set you free.  So if they don’t give you a feeling of freedom, toss them and stop reading this blog altogether.

WHAT AM I ASKING MY CONGREGATION TO RESPOND TO? In Scripture, our worship is always a response to something God has done, or is doing.  So much of the time, we hope people just respond to the music we prepare.  But there’s gotta be something more.  Pick a characteristic of God, and help people respond to that characteristic in their worship.  Become a Tour Guide, not just a Music Leader.

WHAT OLD SONG SHOULD WE PULL OUT AGAIN? So many people connect past God-moments with past lyrics.  Pick a song that you used to sing all the time.  Put a different dressing on it, and sing it loudly.

IS THERE A NEW SONG I WANT TO INTRODUCE? I always used to introduce no more than one new song per service.  Then, I’d always try to repeat that new song for three weeks straight.  If there’s a song that’s been ringing in your heart, make sure you’ve got the right band to introduce it well, and go for it.

WHAT SONG WILL PROVIDE A DOWN MOMENT OF QUIET? Our lives are so loud, so every set should include a down time when everything “bottoms out”.  Pastors shouldn’t be scared of these moments.  What song helps provide a moment like that?

WHAT WILL YOU INVITE PEOPLE INTO DURING THE QUIET? At the bottomed out moment, what will you invite people to think, pray, or do?  Make no mistake – these can be transcendent moments in the lives of worshippers, and worship leaders have the rare opportunity to help establish a spiritual marker in their hearts.  For so many people, this IS the service take-away.

So as you recreate this thing called “worship”, and as you do it over and over and over again, I pray that these questions launch you into creativity and inspiration.  And I pray that each week begins to look and feel differently on paper, in your services, and in your creative heart.

At first, the guys and I were going to go with a funny video idea called “Witnessia”.  But the more we talked about it, the more we felt like we wanted to say something really important.  While some Producers use humor to do that, it’s never been our forte.  For us, the answer was to create a short film called “The Least”.  For me personally, it’s the film that’s been haunting me for a couple of years.  I’ve felt like I was supposed to create it, but I kept putting it off.  The urgent kept winning out over the important.  Happens most days to me.

So we invited a few key people to participate.  Then, we invited everyone who follows us on Twitter and Facebook to participate as extras.  We had to create a church service dismissing, then walking to the parking lot, and then to cars. We shot from 10:00am – 1:00pm in the Fresno heat (106 degrees that day).

We also had to find the perfect church building.  We found it in a neighboring town.  Pastors Paul and Greg were extremely gracious to us, allowing us to use their more-than-perfect facility.

The short film debuted at the Echo Night of Film on July 29, 2010.  As hundreds of people watched it, I felt like my heart was gonna jump out of my chest.  The three of us were interviewed afterward (live).  I muddled something like, “Mama got dogface in the banana patch”.  I was too nervous to speak with any coherence, so Dave and Jason saved the day, speaking very plainly and confidently.

So that’s the back story.  Now you know.

As you watch this film, I’m wondering if you could answer just one question?  Below, could you please tell me and other readers who you believe the sign-holders are?  We’ve already had quite a few varying opinions.  I’d love to know how you interpret this film.

And whoever the sign-holders represent for you, our prayer is that we all make a decision to do something for them.

That’s so easy to say.  Can’t believe how easily those words just roll off my tongue.

Until someone gets specific, and starts naming all the people God’s love embraces.  People not like me.  People who disagree with my slant on life.

“For God so loved the world” really means “For God so loved the Christians-who-think-and-believe-like-the-Bible-says-to”.

Or Christians who read the Bible like I do.

Right?

Are you telling me that God is head-over-heals in love with people who are running as fast as they can away from Him?

Really?

I invite you to pay close attention to your heart right now.  Is there anything that’s fighting this message?  If so, what?

First, it can communicate truth.  Music can do this.  Video bumpers can do this.  A masterfully crafted story can do this.  Sermons can do this.

I think the North American church has become really good at using art to communicate truth.

Secondly, art in churches can create fresh and unresolved cravings.  I wish churches would become more open to this.

“A work of art introduces us to emotions which we have never cherished before.  Great works produce, rather than satisfy needs, by giving the world fresh cravings.”

Abraham Heschel

At church this morning, we talked about legacy.  Our legacy.  I left with a fresh craving to go create a far better legacy.  It was the result of a masterfully crafted sermon, based on a Scriptural narrative (David and Solomon).  There were certain “how to’s”, but I most likely won’t remember them.  I will, however, remember that I was given a fresh craving.  I felt it deep in my gut.

Paintings and sculptures can do this.  A beautifully designed table during the Eucharist can do this. Silence can do this. Stories, music, or an unsettling video piece can all do this.

And while there are a myriad of qualifying questions to ask in the planning of our worship services, it could easily boil down to just two:

* What are we hoping to communicate?

* What fresh cravings are we hoping to ignite (not to answer, but to simply ignite)?

And the really cool thing is this – God has already hardwired the arts to truthfully, and beautifully provide the answers to both of those questions.

It can be so much more than some music, and a lecture.

YOU SHOULD GO.

Worship pastors.

Media guys and gals.

Techies.

Church volunteers.

Senior pastors who think the Creative Arts aren’t satanic, or irrelevant.

Children’s ministry workers who have a hankering for creativity.

Anyone else who can use the word “hankering” in a sentence.

YOU SHOULD GO.

Here’s why…

The Echo Conference isn’t about giving you a bunch of ideas to go home and copy.  The Conference is about equipping and training you to go home and create the best original media you can envision.

The Echo Conference is a place where artists are in a room full of people like themselves, and where senior pastors and executive leaders can feel the uniqueness of the artist’s heartbeat.

The Conference is more about inspiring, and less about informing.

Donald Miller is a keynote speaker.  I’ve heard him twice, and the guy is brilliant.

The Breakout Session speakers are largely accessible, and you’ll be able to sit down with many of them, just to talk about media, creativity, church, and other stuff.

The Conference will top out at 500-600 people.  It’s big enough to have a party, and small enough to be intimate.

Chick Fil-A Sweet Tea.

Jon Acuff was just added as a keynote.  Acuff blends humor and truth like no one I’ve ever read.

Being a Christian and drinking a beer is more okay in Dallas than in many cities.

The Conference provides a deep well of fresh water for thirsty church workers.

The food is the best at any conference, anywhere, at any time.

I’m no big deal, but I’ll be there, and I’ll be speaking, and I’d love to meet you (seriously – I could be working for you one day).  I’ll be the tall guy with no line waiting.  Scott McClellan, on the other hand, will be the tall guy with a swarm of people around him.

Floodgate will have a booth there, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be giving you something for free.

If you type in “floodgate” during the checkout process, you’ll save 20% off the TOTAL cost of your registration (you gotta do this before July 1).

Here’s the bottom line.  When I was a pastor, I attended almost every conference known to man.  As a media guy, I’ve been to the other ones. And I can honestly say that the Echo Conference is the most unique, and most inspiring Conference I’ve attended in the past ten years.

YOU SHOULD GO.

Really.

The bomb seems to detonate when the creator of the media presents the final product to the organizational leader.

Boom.

For years, Creative Artists have been told to come under the authority of the Senior Leader, which means they go back and change (or even recreate) the entire media piece.  And they do it with a smile, in the name of submission.  But if you ask any Creative Artist, they’ll tell you that  even though biblical authority and submission is the goal, resentment can creep in and overtake an Artist’s heart.

I’m more interested in defusing this bomb, than in teaching Creative Artists to be quiet.  So I’m suggesting two questions for the Creative Artist to ask at the beginning of every project.  In a sit-down with the Senior Leader or Teaching Pastor, it becomes more crucial than ever for the Artist to ask these two questions.

Question #1: What do you see? Simply ask that question to the guy in charge.  Do you see images or themes?  Are you inspired from another church, another video, another branding concept?

Question #2: Where do you want this to end? In the case of video (and sometimes music), the Creator of the media needs to know how to end the piece.  Is the piece resolved, or left hanging? Does it end with a question, a bold statement, a series graphic? Should people feel inspired, doubting, wondering?

The Pastor/Teacher’s responsibility is to be prepared to answer these two questions with as much detail as possible.  The Creative Artist’s responsibility is to ask these questions, and take notes as answers and ideas are given (writing things down also helps diffuse any potential explosion).

When information like this is exchanged before the project begins, it heightens trust and builds the relationship between leader and artist.

And in the end, isn’t it far better to defuse this bomb, rather than letting it explode?

He, along with a team of people from his church, go to local businesses and pray over them.  The local business can be Christian, or not.  It doesn’t matter.  They just know that, in this economy, every local business already feels a need for prayer.  So they come to your business, get to know you, pray for you, then celebrate God’s ongoing work in the months to come.

How beautiful is that?

They’re not trying to get more people into their church.  They’re trying to get more people OUT of their church. They’re trying to cultivate the creation of Kingdom environments during the other six days of the week.

In my observation, most church leaders and pastors seem to operate with this core assumption:  “I will reach out to business leaders with the goal of getting them to lead inside my church.”  The goal is not to equip them to become better leaders in the world; the goal is to “evangelize” them into the church, where they can become all God wants them to be.

But many of us who are leading businesses need equipping and training, not to become better Sunday School teachers, but to become better world leaders.

And this one local church plant (less than two years old), has abandoned the idea that the endgame is Sunday morning attendance and/or service.  Instead, they’ve embraced the idea that the endgame is really executed on Monday mornings.

I wish I would have felt this so accutely when I was a pastor.  My days would have looked far different.

The right result.  The best result.  The most profitable result.

Results – the bottom line – become so important to us that we literally organize our entire days around getting them.

Growing our business.

Growing our church.

Getting our followers from Point A to Point B (even though we really have no idea what Point B even looks like).

And there’s nothing wrong with results.  I work for results every day.  Without results, Floodgate tanks.  Results aren’t bad or evil.  The thing about results, or outcomes, is this:

WHILE THEY’RE NOT BAD, THEY’RE ALSO NOT OURS TO OWN.

LUKE 7:37ff

Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.  When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Then he turned toward the woman and said to the Pharisee, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Here’s a woman who spreads her legs for money.  No man is excluded from her offer.  She has learned to strategically coordinate her life around getting the results she needs.  Sex for money.  And in all probability, sex for livelihood.

But when she finds Jesus, she does something that makes no sense whatsoever.  She is broken, yes.  But she is also unconcerned about any result or outcome.  So she breaks a jar of perfume over His feet.  For her, this act is absolutely sacred.

Sacramental.

And Jesus recognizes the sacred waste.

Then He provides the results.

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven…

She didn’t walk into this house with the intent of getting her sins forgiven.  She simply knew what she needed to do.  Perfume.  Waste.  Her wages spilled onto the floor of her accusers.

I wish artists would create art without the expectation of any sales.

I wish pastors would preach without the expectation of numerical church growth.

I wish parents would love their children without the expectation of their acceptance into an elite college.

I wish we’d learn the difference between expectation and hope.

I wish we’d all learn to find the sacredness, not in the result, but in the process.  Let’s work our tails off at the process, making it our sacrament.

But let’s learn, possibly for the first honest moment in our lives, to truly leave the results in the more-than-capable hands…

of Jesus.

And I’m really concerned.

Not about her, or about Christianity, or about God.

I’m really concerned about me.

I’m concerned about the wide array of judgmental and critical thoughts coming from my heart.  And I think I just want to pose that question today…

Why am I so prone to judgment and criticism?

At the most basic level of all, I’m screwed up and broken. So what do screwed up, broken people do too much of?  We critique.  We judge.  We find Scripture passages that support our belief system.  We shout those beliefs from the blogtops.

At another level, I think I feel like I need to stand up for God. Whether I fall into the “Good for Knapp” camp, or the “Bad for Knapp” camp, I feel like I need to run to Scripture, find an answer, then let the world know.  And I do this because God is depending on me to do that.  That looks even more stupid now that I read it.

At another level, judging Jeniffer Knapp excuses me from looking at my own brokenness. I am sexually broken. I promise that I will have more lustful thoughts today than she will.  But focusing on judging her will remove the focus from my own dark heart.  It’s kinda nice that way.

Finally, judging Knapp puts me on a morally superior level – something that helps me join the religious leaders in Jesus’ day.  It allows me to pick up a stone, or crack a whip, or drive a nail clean through.  I am right, after all.  I can show you chapter and verse.  So could the religious leaders who, in their moral and even Scriptural rightness, killed God.

As a result of Knapp’s admission, there will be Christians debating the topic of homosexuality everywhere today.  But as this debate rages on toward no possible solution, I pray that people are willing to ask the more difficult question.  I pray that they’re willing to ask…

Why do I always have to be right?

The first post is here.  In that post, I talked about the importance of The Adjective Question.

In this post, I’m posing the second of three questions we should be willing to ask.

THE FUTURE VS. REALITY QUESTION

The second question has to do with future goals and current realities.  The Future vs. Reality Question is extremely important, especially when the copy writer is also a visionary leader.  Here’s the question:

Are we advertising a future goal as if it were a current reality?

Leaders often talk in future terms, as if it’s a reality in the present.  But the rest of us call it lying. I’m not saying that leaders are liars.  I’m just talking about perceptions.

By far the most popular phrase that falls into this category is “life-changing”.  Does every worship service have the potential to be “life-changing”?  Yes.  But in the normal life of a church, is every worship service really “life-changing”?  Probably not.  These services have the potential to change someone’s life over the long haul, but that’s a future hope, and shouldn’t be advertised as a current norm that happens to everyone, all the time.

Another popular phrase is “reaching the world for Christ”.  Churches need to be honest about this and ask if they’re CURRENTLY reaching the world for Christ, or is it something they’re striving toward?

Casting vision is a great thing.  But visionary leaders need to make sure that they’re casting vision as something in the FUTURE that’s attainable, not as something being experienced in the present, but not really.

Because people know the difference.

(The third and final post in this Series will go live on Monday.  Thanks for reading along.  I’m constantly blown away by the fact that anyone wants to read this stuff.  But God is very, very good.)

(This article was originally printed in Collide Magazine).