The Linear Chosen

By Scott Wetzel

 “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Is. 43:19 (NIV)

  

It seems like the world as a whole has taken the lazy way out when it comes to art.  Hollywood remakes old movies.  Pop music isn’t any different today than it was 20 years ago.  Country music isn’t any different today than pop music was 20 years ago. Thomas Kincaid is still painting the same shack with the same sunset.  Even the styles we dress in are rehashed from eras gone by.  There is a crisis of creativity.

And I haven’t helped much with that.  I’m afraid to break out of the mold.  Maybe it’s my upbringing or maybe it’s peer pressure, but I don’t like to stray too far from path.  People that are only acquainted with me might balk at this next statement, but extending my creative wings is scary and painful. 

To me, the scariest place on earth to be outside of the box is in church.  In fact, some of the loudest complaining I’ve ever heard is in the church.  It’s a rare occasion that I’ve been to a club to see a concert and someone complains about how loud the music is.  Or been to a conference where there is a speaker and people complain that they didn’t get fed in the way they thought they should.  People go to those places for a reason…it’s to extract an energy that they don’t get from listening to a record or reading a book.

We go to worship services for the same reason.  We are there to experience God in a different way.  In a communal way.  We fellowship with other believers, worship with the Body of Christ, and hear the Word of God in a new light.  But if it’s a bit different than last week, we get upset and begin to shore up the purse strings or look for a different church home.

It’s as though the system has been set up for the Linear Chosen.

Now we’re in a pickle, though, because we’ve decided to settle.  We’ll stifle our creativity within the confines of the church in order to keep satisfied those that aren’t willing to reach outside of the box.  In the process we’ve lost all of the artists to the enemy.  We’ve alienated creative thinkers.  The church of the left brain is in session while the church of the right brain is struggling. 

Don’t we serve a God of the whole brain?  Doesn’t God love linear thinkers as much as He loves creative thinkers, and vice versa?  I believe that God created everyone to worship Him in unity, not because all of our brain processes work the same, but because He is the common denominator.  Can’t we have liturgy AND creative thinking?  That’s what God does.  He’s the same yesterday, today and forever, all the while He’s creating and molding and shaping.  Let’s let the church be an image of God.