“In the beginning, God CREATED…” “Man is CREATED in the image of God…”
The American church is becoming more and more creative. I believe this to be true. Artists, authors, songwriters, web-techs, musicians, speakers, webmasters, and more have provided useful models in the realm of the creative.
The cell church should not be left behind. A clarion call is due for cell church practitioners to move forward, advance the kingdom of God, and reach the future leadership which is in the harvest through creativity. Copying models of old should be avoided and creative attempts to do new things heralded.
A cell church is a two winged church, right? It is cells and Celebration. I’m thankful for the cell church pioneers who taught me this back in the day. Allow me to tell you about an experience that I shared with my church family during Celebration this past Sunday.
One of our worship leaders, Grayson Belvin, chatted with me a few weeks ago about an idea. Gray said, “How cool would it be to write a song during worship? I mean right there on the spot– write a song and sing it together as a spiritual family.” A discussion ensued and a few other pastors on the team joined the lively and CREATIVE process.
Here’s how his creative idea culminated this past Sunday during Celebration. During the praise and worship time, Grayson invited anyone to come to two large sheets of paper and write down a word or two– even a sentence or a phrase in the context of “What God Thinks About Me” (which happened to be the message title for the teaching). It was fascinating to see young and old participate– men, women, parents with children in tow.
This time of worship concluded. The worship team grabbed the large pieces of paper and journeyed to a room near the worship center. I began to teach on “What God Thinks About You.” I wrapped up the message and prayed.
After the prayer, the worship team sang a song– a new song. You see, during my teaching, they took the words, phrases, sentences from the church family (the “lyrics”) and wrote a song. Not only for one time of Celebration, but for two Celebration services. Yes sir and mam, a NEW SONG for each Celebration gathering. The words were projected on the screens and the church family joined in the new song.
After the song was sung by the full worship team and the Celebration attenders, I shared with the church family what just took place. Shouts of praise…tears of joy…appreciative smiles… bewildered looks that suggested “How did they do that?”…glory to the creative God…filled the room.
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found” (James Russell Lowell, US Diplomat, essayist, poet, 1819-1891).
May God’s creative Spirit flow through you today!
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by Rob Campbell
www.cypresscreekchurch.com