Lets stop franchising creativity.
Lets stop stealing ideas.
Lets begin creating in a way that’s contextually creative.
Let’s begin to let visual worship be unique to our communities.
One of the core values of SALT is the idea that visual worship is more effective when it’s not “just” a stolen idea. This means that just because Willow Creek does something, means that it’s meant to be for your community. You aren’t Bill Hybels, which means your community won’t look like Bill’s.
Visual Worship must be Unique.
I understand we live in the world of “sunday’s comin” and we don’t have time to constantly be original and unique. We’re not saying that every idea you come up with has to be 100% brand new, because that’s simply not possible. However, there is something to be said about the idea that our creativity comes from The Creative, our Heavenly Father. And There’s something to be said about the idea of not always stealing an idea from the same place.
For example, instead of going to ChurchStageDesignIdeas.com and just taking their most popular stage design for July, we instead believe that it’s important to take the inspiration from a few designs you like to build something new from that place of inspiration. This means that we need to be okay with not having an idea from time to time so that when we create something it’s unique, original to our community and curated to fit the needs of our series or service.
In Matthew 25, we read about the parable of the talents. To me, it’s not a story about finances per say, but rather gifts and talents that are bestowed upon someone. Notice that the ones who were faithful with the talents and gifts God gave them, used them in a manner worthy of the gifts and talents, expanding the influence of them. However the one who had considerably few talents didn’t do anything with it. It’s as if that guy stole others ideas because he was too afraid to use the talents and abilities God gave him.
This is a topic that’s really important to SALT, and a big point of discussion at the conference. We’ll have many breakout classes on this topic and several opportunities throughout to experience new and unique visual worship.
