Creativity vs. Order

I have experienced some tension in recent history over several concepts as they relate to church liturgy and worship:

• Creativity
• Creative expression
  
• Excellence
• Perfection
  
• Order
• Involvement of the Holy Spirit

In my mind, it boils down to a tension between creativity and order and in a perfect world we'd have a good mix of both. This tension, which isn't necessarily bad, happens on two levels: in the planning process and in the execution of it during the practices and weekend services. We want things to be orderly, planned, and presented excellently and we also want to allow the activity of the Holy Spirit to be present and allow the participants the freedom to be creative. If that's what you're selling, put me down for a dozen.

Ultimately, I think this tension exists because God, in His wisdom, created man in His own image with the capacity to think and be creative. He instilled in us the ability to reason, think logically, to create, and think abstractly. He further sculpted each individual with his own set of strengths and unique abilities to the extent some are more creative and some are more logically-minded. God designed us this way so that we would rely on others to be for us what we cannot be on our own.

However, lately I've observed the polarization of these two ideas. Orderliness would suffer at the expense of creativity and creativity would be squelched at the priority of structure. While this might be true, it's true because it's a problem we ourselves have created and not by design. We have polarized those two concepts and have hung a pendulum in between. We swing the pendulum based on what's working and what's not working. Eventually, your arms will get tired of either swinging the pendulum or holding it in place.

Since we are made in the image of God, and God is both creative and orderly, we should strive to demostrate that in our worship to Him and our communion with other believers. I'm not talking about "balance." I'm suggesting not sacrificing one at the expense of another. Creativity without order becomes chaos. Order without creativity becomes stale.

Somehow, this man-made bout between Order and Creativity turned ugly when the referee turned his back and Perfection and Failure made their way into the ring and caused bedlam. Perfection and started pummeling Creativity and Failure was laying the smackdown on Order. The problem is Perfection and Failure weren't invited to this match because they're not in opposition to Creativity and Order. Perfection does not side with Order against Creativity. Failure (or the permission of failure) and Creativity do not join forces against Order.

The opposite of failure is achievement.

The opposite of perfection is being flawed.

The opposite of order is chaos.

The opposite of creativity is lack of imagination.

I want to address the idea of perfection. We are not perfect nor could we be humanly perfect. That does not mean we should not try our hardest and strive for excellence. Everyone makes mistakes but that does not excuse us from not trying to prevent mistakes through practice and/or preparedness.

As a contributor of a corporate gathering governed by order, led by the Spirit, and crafted by creativity, I take seriously my role to offer the best of myself and my talents to God for His honor and pleasure and to assist others in pursuing communion with God and His people. Unless I am mistaken, this should be the goal of every participant from the greeter to the preacher to every instrumentalist and lead worshiper. I am afraid we have created unnecessary polarizations and correlations that have led to mediocrity in the offering of ourselves to God in worship.

Some questions:

• How do we achieve order without sacrificing creativity? How do we achieve creativity without sacrificing order? Are these valid questions?
• If you had to choose either order or creativity, which would it be? Why?
  
• What part does the Holy Spirit play in the corporate worship of the living God?
• What is the responsibility of those involved to create an environment condusive to worship?
• How important is it for the participants to be prepared for worship in their hearts and in their abilities?
• What part do these things play during a corporate worship gathering? Excellence, failure, mistakes, creativity, self-expression, structure, humanness.