Creativity
Jan 12, 2009 Print This Post
(graphic via ZADI DIAZ)
At Riv, we place a pretty high value on creativity. Since people ask me about this quite a bit, I thought I’d post a few random things I have learned over the years.
We are created in the image of the creator, so we create. Approximately 1/3 of the music at Riv is original, and most of the arrangements are as well. We have an art gallery in our Holt Venue. We write a lot of our own classes. We are doing some relatively unheard of ministry because people had a vision for a ministry they wanted to create. In fact, with a very limited staff (due to budget), we still think it’s vital to have a Creative Director on staff. She rocks.
We take risks in our creative pursuits. We have seven different bands at Riv and each and every one of them garners complaints. Why? Because they push our style boundaries. Good. We’ve tried things we thought were awesome and they flopped and we’ve tried things we didn’t think would work and they did. I would rather try and fail at something than never to try anything new.
We create for young people. The sad reality is young people are not giving their lives to Jesus at the pace their parents and grandparents did. And so as a church, we focus our energies on teens, college students, singles, and young families. When creating something new, we first ask how it will affect and come across to this group. It’s not that we don’t think of other generations, they are just not our primary focus group. I have heard people say you “shouldn’t target one generation over another,” and I think that is crap. Everyone targets some group of people, even the churches that don’t think they do. Give me 5 minutes in your service and I’ll tell you who you are targeting.
I’m sure I have more thoughts on this, but my creative juices just dried up so I am going to hit “post” now.
January 12th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Well I can’t say it isn’t effective. I don’t think I would have become a regular church goer in college had I not carpooled with some guys from my dorm and heard the music at the service 5 years ago.