Be Creative

May 2008

Luke 16 gives us a glimpse of how Jesus felt about the need for us to be creative in our approach to Kingdom business. Check this out:

1Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' 3"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' 5"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6" 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 7"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' 8"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

First of all, think about Who is telling this parable… Jesus, the one who imagined the Alps, the oceans, the stars, the giraffe, and us. Secondly look forward a few voices and find out who His audience is for this story…the Pharisees. They were the church of that day. I see the second half of verse 8 to be a screaming indictment against the church doing “business as usual.” Throughout the Bible God challenges us to be creative in our worship and service. In the Old Testament He says, “behold I do a new thing, will you not know it.” In the New Testament, Jesus says that you can’t “put new wine in old wineskins.” So can’t you just imagine the frustration in His voice as He tells this parable? I think if He was here among us today He would be challenging us to fix our eyes on the world around us to see what our culture responds to, while keeping our ears tuned to the sky to hear new ideas from Heaven.

Sometimes we act like God used up all of His best ideas at creation and hasn’t had any new thoughts since then. I don’t think we really believe that, but we often operate as if we do. While the church and the Worship Arts Department must constantly be re-evaluating how we do things, we must also do it individually. I’m challenging you to look at how you approach worship and service and ask God to give you fresh ideas for bringing in the harvest and leading others in discipleship. I’m also asking you to lift our church and particularly the choir, musicians, and members of the drama team up and ask God to give us new revelation and new methods. He hasn’t run out of new ideas, He’s just waiting to share them with people with hungry hearts and open minds.

Blessings,

Danny