I think the church should be the most creative it can be. Several years ago I went to Las Vegas to see a boxing match — not to gamble! — and there I was looking at all the signage, because no one does signage like Las Vegas. I said to myself, "Vegas has nothing to say but they know how to say it, yet the church has everything to say but so often we don't know how to say it."
I just feel so strongly that the church should be on the crest of creativity — that the most creative things out there should be the local churches. To me the exception should be when the church is not creative. But sadly, so often you find churches have somehow taken the Bible — the most exciting book — and made it boring. I tell people don't blame God because God's not boring. Blame the person speaking.
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And I also think that 80 percent of what a senior pastor does is preparation and the delivery of the message — 80 percent. We have a saying around here, and its pretty graphic, but I say "it's the weekend stupid" — James Carville, when he headed up the Clinton campaign years ago, had that sign that said "it's the economy stupid." Everything revolves around the weekend and I believe in proclamation of the Word so you can't talk about discipleship or evangelism or worship or children's ministry or student ministry or missions activity unless the weekend is hitting on all cylinders. That's the biggest port of entry in the church. We have to be ourselves, and when we're ourselves we're going to be our most creative. Then when that happens I think phenomenal things are going to occur.
Creativity is not bouncing off the walls. It's not gimmicky. It has to be biblically-driven. We're not above the Bible or on the same level as the Bible. We're under the Bible — we're under scripture. So it has to be Biblically-driven. And I believe when its biblically-driven you're going to find that sweet spot of communication.
I think that small tweaks take us to giant peaks in communication. It doesn't have to be these big honkin' things and flying down from the ceiling or painting the walls orange and throwing sand in the foyer. It's within your context and sometimes it can be as small as changing the time when you speak, or it can be maybe one time giving a message outline or message map and then one time you don't do it. Maybe it's having the choir or your praise team singing in one area in the church one weekend and another area another weekend. Maybe it's using video clips for two straight weeks and maybe it's not using it for six weeks. Maybe it's being very loud and having all the lights for three or four weeks, and maybe it's totally dialed down, totally simplistic for four straight weeks.