When did the need for structure first begin to limit your
creativity? I think it began for me in kindergarten
when the teacher insisted that I had to color within the lines. I don’t remember if I asked “Why?” or not,
but I do know that there was no option.
Of course, my teacher wife and daughter would assure me that this has something
to do with developing small motor skills, but I still wonder about the practice
and what’s so important about “coloring within the lines.”
The same is true in the church.
Early on, each of us was ingrained with the idea of “this is the way we
do church.” Imagine my surprise as a teenager
when I discovered that other people (including other Baptists) did church in
different ways. I did not find this
threatening but rather exciting!
Those of us who work in the church today must address the fact
that we have been trained to avoid creativity and temper our curiosity. We have been encouraged to maintain a structure
not to modify it. Not only church members but ministers are threatened by
change. If we change, what will be the
consequences? How will it affect
me? Will I have to do something
different or learn a new skill? As
William Bridges says, “It is not that we don’t like change; we don’t like BEING
changed.”
Perhaps the most challenging step of the CHANGE process is
nurturing curiosity and creativity. I think there is a fear that if we become
too creative in the way that we do church, we might not recognize what we have
created. Will it still be “church”?
A historical perspective might help. If we went back to the first century, would
we expect Christians to be “doing church” in the same ways that we do now? We really don’t need to go back that far to
see how things have changed. If you are
Baptist and remember the six-point record system, Sunday night worship, week-long
revival meetings, and Church Training, you realize that the church you attend
today is different from the one of your youth.
If you have someone in the church who says, “We’ve never done it
that way before,” I think you can assure them that somewhere in some era of church
history, there are have been Christians who have done just about anything to
further the church’s mission—house churches, bi-vocational leaders, faith
missions, and so on.
If we are truly to fulfill our God-given mission, we must
consider all the options that our curiosity and creativity can devise.
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