Have you ever seen the “Like Mike” Gatorade commercial? It’s from the early nineties when Michael Jordan had taken the world by storm. There’s all these little kids trying to do some of his signature moves on courts in their driveways and at various parks while this song “If I could be like Mike” was playing in the background.

Check out the Gatorade Commercial if you’ve never seen it.

I don’t know the specifics, but I’m positive that the sales for Gatorade, basketballs and garage hung basketball goals when up significantly during this time. They portray this guy who does extraordinary things on the basketball court and at the same time makes it look easy enough to make us think that we can do it as well. Even better, we are told to believe that the only thing missing from our lives is Gatorade. I bet the other numbers that really jumped was the enrollment in youth basketball leagues and high school tryouts. Everyone was told that they have the ability to do what the great Michael Jordan does. So everyone tried. There were some pretty good players. There were a bunch more that never made the cut. There were some that were playing with 2 left feet, a knee brace and an eye patch. But everyone tried. We felt empowered to do so.

Flash forward and switch genres. This smiling Texas boy starts writing songs and they are catchy enough. Then the Christian world gets a hold of them and now you can’t find a church on a Sunday morning that isn’t singing at least one of his songs. He plays four chords, writes what seems to be some pretty simple words, throws in a catchy hook and we’re all singing and praising God. Before too long someone decides, “If Chris Tomlin can write 52 songs in 47 minutes, so can I. None of his songs are that difficult, I bet I could do that too. He’s only playing 4 chords. It can’t be THAT hard to learn to play guitar!” Then youth group kids begin to flood Guitar Center, spending their allowances on a $2500 Taylor or Martin guitar when they barely know the difference between major and minor.

Why am I writing this one today? Well it’s sort of a follow up from yesterday’s post about creativity. Granted, I’m not blaming Chris Tomlin for anything, so don’t go and tweet him and tell him that I think he’s the problem with churches today. That’s not what I’m saying. What I AM saying is this: when someone is so good at something that they make it look easy, everyone starts to believe that they can do it as well. Now there are all of these imitators, or even better, people who think they are going to one up one of the most influential songwriters in contemporary Christian music today. The major problem comes when these kids step into our church and show minimal at best talent, and then they are throw up front and now they are leading worship for the youth and then maybe they get a shot in the main service. Some of them are the ones with talent that end up going pretty far in the game. Some of them are decent and with a little coaching could be pretty good. Some of them are playing with two left feet, a knee brace and an eye patch. But in the church we have let them all flow through. It has lowered the quality level of the music in our churches and somewhere along the line we just became okay with that.

Again, before you start beating me up, I know that this doesn’t apply to everyone. Some churches just don’t have a lot of talented people in them. Right now, in my own church, I can’t seem to find a guitar player to save my life! Even though what I just said is true in most churches, it is not the case in my own. So I spend most of my time trying to find someone to play guitar with me and I end up more times than not just going without one. So I understand that this may not apply to your church. And if you’re getting super mad about this one, I may be talking about you. Just saying…

At some point I believe that we have to find ways to allow people to use their creativity in ways that bring glory to God. Again, we were created by God. Created being the key word there. Why is it that we have gotten to the point where the “creative” stuff is good outside the walls of the church, but doesn’t work on the inside? I have another theory about that one, but maybe I’ll start my creativity theories next week. Chew on this one for a minute and let me know if you agree or disagree.

In the beginning, God created…

Pretty much EVERY translation of the Bible starts this way. Except for one that seems to add as many words as possible in translating  from the original language. But when I read this passage, this is what pops in my head. God created. Everything from then on comes from something that he made with his own hands. I’ve been having lots of conversations like this with people during this month of the Collision Course series we are doing at my church. When I think about how the Christian culture interacts with the rest of the world, it’s no wonder that there is such a divide. There’s no real collisions happening. It’s either running the other way or jumping WAY in and getting lost in the mess. But that’s another post.

In a discussion I was having last night with my friend Alex, we were talking about the newest Gungor album among other things. We started talking about how Michael Gungor had written a blog post about the Christians response to his album. He wrote a very interesting blog post back in November. In it he talks asks the question why some Christian music is considered “so creative” in its reviews. It seems as if we have been lulled to sleep by the music that has been released in the Christian music subculture. So when anything comes out that doesn’t sound like everything else, it’s considered “creative”. It’s as if creative isn’t normally accepted in the rest of the Christian world. I wonder why that is…

One of the phrases that always kills me in meetings and songwriting sessions (I’ve used it too, so I’m not throwing anyone under the bus here) is “let’s think outside the box”. One of the reasons it kills me is because the box is fickle. Also, the box is different for everyone. You look at a really large church with a 5 or 6 figure budget for their creative ministry and think “they have the ability to be creative”. I would venture to say they just have more money to play with. We were all made by the same creative God.

Somewhere back in time there must have been a decision made that there was some music that was not appropriate for the church. As a result it all became bland. So now when people like Gungor and John Mark McMillan and people write some really awesome music that speaks truth about God is a way that doesn’t fit the mold that we made for church, it’s considered creative. I think it does a couple things when we say that. 1, it almost alienates those who write music that doesn’t fit the pop mold. 2, it makes everyone else that writes music for church seem lame with no real flair for invention. I always feel bad for Chris Tomlin when conversations happen. I don’t know the guy. We have never met. But whenever people talk about church music verses ‘other’ music, he’s the first name that pops up. Let me go out on this limb right now and defend Chris Tomlin. Chris has done an amazing job writing songs that speak directly to the glory of God. I sing his songs in my church with pride because I know that I’m singing songs that speak Gospel truth and they usher people into His presence. I would venture to say that he’s a creative person. Now, there are some people out there who think, hear, see and feel musically differently than others. You listen to their music and think “how did they get THERE?” We immediately think that their music is so much more creative than anything we sing at church on Sunday. I think that’s messed up.

We were all here because of a creative God. That means that by default we have His creative genes because He is our Father. Is there some sort of way to bring the creativity back to Christianity? At what point do we stop looking at churches and think they are “thinking outside the box”? Can we get rid of the freaking box? Just saying…

I have been in a severe drought as of late. I can’t remember the last time I’ve sat down to be creative. For me, creativity pertains to writing music and making stuff up. I’m starting to think that I’m trying to hard. I’ve been looking for the conditions to be perfect: the lights to be low, soft music in the background, the water is warm and the bubble are soft and fluffy…wait, wrong conditions. But I think this mindset is killing me. I haven’t had any time to just sit and think and let my mind do what it does. It has been filled with so many other things, life, that I have crowded out all my other fun stuff. I realize that it is starting to affect how I am around other people. I don’t want to be that person who has all these regrets and wanted to do all this stuff and never did because of whatever reason. I’ve been stuck for a long time

My question to all of you(whether it be 200 or closer to the 6 that might actually read it) is this: What do you do to make sure that you don’t lose yourself in all the busyness of this world? It’s so easy for me to throw myself into things that I forget to take time to be me; the me that God created me to be. How do I work through that whole thing? How do you work through that whole thing? I have officially stumped myself and am wanting to hear your thoughts and ideas…