As a creative person, that’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. She was saying – “here’s a part of who I am” and they were saying “nobody will care.”

So how do you respond to this type of feedback or set back? I’ve faced it a bunch of times, especially when I’ve written songs, and I need to ask myself this important question. Is the purpose of this particular song a personal act of worship, or a tool for others to use to engage in worship? If it’s the first, then I need to be wise about what I share and how i look for other’s approval in what I’ve created. It’s like asking for feedback on a personal prayer of confession or adoration or supplication and having someone correct your sentence structure, use of dynamics, poor theology or use of metaphor – ultimately violating a personal dialogue with your Creator.

On the other hand, if the purpose of your creativity is to engage others, and allow them to use it as a vehicle to connect with God, then you need to allow yourself to be open to the feedback and constructive criticism of others, because they will most likely highlight the things they perceive as barriers to engaging with your work.

The greatest corporate songs of worship were laid bare, scrutinised, tweaked, refined and simplified, by the writers and those they trusted. They asked themselves questions like – “is this singable? Could I articulate this thought more eloquently or succinctly? Do I need this pre-chorus? Does the melody support the lyrics? Is this song an item or a congregational song? A song of affirmation, adoration, confession or meditation? Are the lyrics biblically sound?” etc etc etc.

So know who your audience is when you worship with your creativity. If it’s for corporate consumption, don’t be precious. If it’s your personal act of worship to God, don’t cast pearls before swine.

While sitting at a set of lights this morning, I thought to myself – You can’t inspire other’s if you’re not being inspired. It’s cause and effect.

So who’s inspiring you?

For me, at the moment it’s Steve Furtick when he talks about FAITH, Andy Stanley on Prayer, a bunch of interviews on the Catalyst Podcast like Rick Warren and Joel Houston and Brooke Fraser, that have inspired me to realise that every minute counts and God’s plans for me are bigger than MY plans for me.

Let’s go change the world

Maybe in an area of physical, spiritual or emotional healing. Maybe it’s in a ministry area where you want to take things somewhere and you feel like there’s a millstone tied to your feet.

Steven Wright, the king of dead-pan comedy once said:

“I’ve got a microwave fireplace – now I can sit in front of the fire with a hot chocolate all night in just 8 minutes…”

As someone who likes to find the profound in comedy, this is so true of my faith! I want a microwave faith! But somehow I know I’m robbed of the experience of journeying with God, if the forming of my character should take all year and I want it done in 2 days…

I see in my mind where I want our ministry to be and want the microwave experience – but I know the team, the infrastructure, the disciplines and the resources wouldn’t taste anywhere near as good as those that are left to simmer ( read: mature ) in a slow cooker.

I was reflecting on Phillippians 4:6-8 this morning, where Paul instructs us to bring all the things we stress about to God, and “the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus…”

I’ve been waiting for the river of peace to wash over me like a flood in an instant – but maybe that would just rob me of some growth in my character?

Isaiah 40:31 says “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…”

So I’m waiting

He went on to talk about the 4 ways God tests our faithfulness, which was fascinating in itself, but he finished the thought with this:

“You are responsible for the Depth of your ministry,  God is responsible for the Breadth.”

This blog is me unpacking that thought.

I think most of us at some point in our lives have desired influence before substance. The desire to matter, be noticed and respected by the greatest number of people long before we’ve been broken, humbled and shaped by our faithfulness to God in anonymity.

As a Christian and as a leader of a music ministry, my primary focus should be going as deep as we can with the little we have. Deeper into Gods Word, Deeper into our relationships, Deeper into the Spirit of God, Deeper into our Creative expression.

I love the life of Keith Green. The particular part of his life that I reflect on often is that before he found Jesus, his desire was to be a famous musician. He was quite well known in the clubs and bars of LA. He was on TV at age 11 for signing a 5-year record deal. After his conversion, the idea of fame was surrendered to a desire to do whatever it was God called him to. He submitted his gifts to God and used those as an act of worship. It was only when the ‘god’ of fame was dead in his life that God used Keith’s gifts for his own purposes. There’s a great scene from the archives which shows him walking onto a stage at the Christian equivalent of Woodstock and everyone goes wild. He almost rebuked them! “What are you clapping me for? You should be clapping the Lord!!”

The irony of it all is that if your motivation for Depth is the desire for Breadth, you’re probably still in the shallows…

* apparently!

So I’m not sure if anyone else is doing this at the moment, but for our latest series we decided to not only provide our congregation with printed material but to design an interactive devotional for the iPad. iBooks Author has recently been released with a focus on the education sector, making it easy to design and publish Digital Text books.

Our Lead Minister Stu Cameron had prepared a 40 Day devotional journeying through the Apostles’ Creed from lent through to Easter. Each Day provided reflections, Key Bible Texts, Devotional Reflections and Media links to Videos and articles of interest. What a perfect application for iBooks?!

We downloaded iBooks Author FREE from the App Store and started to see if it would suit our purposes. Not only is it SUPER EASY to use, it allowed us to make the devotional experience on the iPad really engaging. So we set about creating our first iBook, and Delivered FREE via our website in the huge turnaround time of 2 Days!! ( You don’t need an iTunes seller account to distribute locally to your congregation via your website, provided the content is given free of charge. You can also deliver via the iBooks store either as a paid publication or free. )

The iBooks App allows people to highlight passages of interest, take notes, answer multiple choice questions, view embedded videos or link to YouTube or other web-based content. It’s so practical I’m convinced we will start providing this resource for all our major in-house publications.

Given this is only a new release from Apple, I’m thinking there aren’t many churches that have jumped on this idea yet – so get into it!

To see our Creed iPad App in action, make sure you have the latest iOS and iBooks versions, and go to the following link on your iPad!

http://www.newlifeuniting.com/featured/creed

And then I look at my life… and what God has called me to, and I remind myself, God’s looking at me, going, “Hey, Craig! Wish you were here…”

So my revelation this week is that i should stop trying to get people to “Where I’m at” and start getting me to “where God’s at” and then hopefully I’m inspiring other’s to get where God’s at…

It’s good to remind myself as a leader that God’s a much better yardstick than me…

When I was 4 years old I started learning Suzuki Method violin. The first year I never got to play an actual violin. I had a ruler taped to an empty kleenex box which i had to tuck under my chin and walk around for 20 mins a day, just to get used to the feeling and strengthen my neck apparently?!? I’m surprise i didn’t quit right then… For the next 7 or so years, on and off i played the violin. Every so often i’d lose interest, and so I started learning the trumpet. Then it hurt my teeth and I spent a year getting piano lessons. I won 2nd prize ( A shiny new $2 coin ) at the Warrnambool Estedford for playing ‘My New Bike.’ Having conquered the world as a professional concert pianist, i asked Mum and Dad for drum lessons. I learned the drums for a couple of years in between short 1 year spurts of French Horn, Bass and even Tuba. When my friend got a brand new Levinson Blade, I thought I’d like to play guitar. When I left High School I was playing drums more often than not and moved to Melbourne to study audio engineering. My apartment didn’t afford me the luxury of practicing drums, so i picked up an acoustic and started teaching myself. Eventually I studied guitar at Box Hill College of music.

My  mum would always get so frustrated with me – JUST PICK SOMETHING! I was fast becoming someone who knew a little bit about a lot and never excelled in any of it. I would get frustrated that someone was always better than me at whatever it was that I was doing. It discouraged me, and so I’d look for something else to sink my teeth into. That’s part of the creative brain i think – where’s my next challenge? I get the general gist of French Horn – now what? It’s plagued me all my life in every area I’ve ventured into. I reach a certain level of competence and move on to the next challenge. Ironically, and it really is ironic – that lack of practical commitment to any one thing has served me well in my role as Creative Arts Pastor because i guess I know enough about the areas I’m responsible for to know if someone’s pulling the wool over my eyes, and if something needs to be done I can usually do it.

Hmmm… that sounds like a compelling argument to continue a pursuit of mediocrity – and by all means, please do – but know that your value in a team first and foremost comes from you investing in those things you’re good at, and bringing the best of that to the table. I realised at college that the reason everyone at College was a better guitarist than me was because they spent every spare waking hour practicing their guitar. They didn’t divide their time between learning Guitar and trying to figure out how this ‘internet thing’ worked. They weren’t out taking photos, learning photoshop or pulling things apart and putting them back together with less screws…

It’s easy for us to get bored in our gifting if we don’t challenge ourselves to excel at what we do. If you’re a drummer – getting through a service is not your musical end-goal. Developing your skills and inspiring the others in your team should be your end goal. Ask yourself – “what am I bringing to the table?”

John Maxwell talks about levels of leadership – and i think they easily apply to musicians and technicians in the creative medium. He says if you’re a 7, 8 or 9 in one area – don’t waist your time trying to grow something that’s only a 3 or 4, or in some cases a 0! Your best value to the team is getting your 7 to a 9, or your 8 to a 10!! At best you may only grow your 3 to a 5 – and the time you’ve invested will amount to a lack of fulfilment and/or frustration, whilst robbing the team of your valuable contribution of 8.

I guess what I’m saying here is that as much as I’d encourage everyone to try new things, don’t do it at the expense of those you’re serving with. We might lose a great guitarist and gain an average bass player that needs to be carried each week – or a gifted worship leader might end up doing very average mixes up the back.

As someone AGAIN reminded me today – “Just do one thing well!”

So believe me when I say that we take these two times of year very seriously when it comes to presenting the gospel message in an engaging and yes, dare i say it, an entertaining way. Entertaining from the point of view that if people drag themselves and their families to church on Christmas morning, we want them to go home having concluded that not only was it worth it, but that it inspired them. That the images, sounds and words stay in their mind long after the presents are unwrapped and the turkey is digested. That Jesus, and his story, were a significant part of their christmas celebrations.

My aim every year with these events is to engage people from the moment they walk in the auditorium. Multi-sensory engagement. The sounds that people hear. The things people see. Small details which capture people’s attention and build expectation. I always want to push our music team out of their comfort zone – to give us something to aspire to, and therefore a sense of achievement! Through lighting, multimedia and music – we hope to focus people on the message which is brought later in the service. We want people to leave having unapologetically heard – and been inspired by the gospel message. Inspired enough to respond. Inspired enough to bring some of the attention of festivities back to Jesus – through conversation and imagination. After all, for a lot of the people we see at Christmas, we only get 2 chances a year.