Fostering creativity in church

Fernando’s Desk is on to something important here, in a post that considers the ways in which congregations innovate (or don’t) with music:

"It is no co-incidence that many of our contemporary worship songs emerge from the wings of the church where theology is less precise and spoken discourse less scrutinised and polished. Those same churches tend to legitimise creative ministry as a valid and not secondary option and create space for those ministries to flourish. This sends out a clear message to musicians and writers and those churches reap the harvest of lots of new, fresh material.

If we want better and richer worship material in our churches, then the first step is to look at the implicit and explicit messages we send to our musicians. We need to think about the spaces we create for them to present new (and maybe unconventional or controversial) work and the opportunities we give them to be supported both financially and spiritually."

AMEN. This week, during our orientation at Luther, I listened to a good friend and professorial colleague of mine, a professional church musician, say very authoritatively that congregational song is best defined as music that can be sung without any accompanying instruments at all and without any electronic amplification. While I would agree that multiple voices raised in harmony without any accompaniment can be incredibly powerful and soul-ful, I'm not convinced that that is the only credible form that congregational song could take. By defining "true" music in this way, what other messages do we send to people who are moved by music that does not fit that pattern?