This picture has gone across facebook today in the theatre community. I saw my brother Elic's repost of it. The thing is pretty powerful - a note regarding a tech rehearsal from a theatre production that puts the healing power of storytelling into perspective.

Everyone who creates art in some way will have their own take on this story and the meaning of it, and so here's mine: We may not ever be able to see it as clearly as it is described in this paragraph, but do not be mistaken about it - the storytelling that we do, be it in video, theatre performance, podcasting, writing, poetry, dance - you name it - it accesses the healing power that can only be found from a loving God who wants to be in relationship with us.

The reason that we storytellers love to tell stories is on the off-chance that a moment like the one described in the picture could occur - that God would work in an incredible way. He does, He is, He will.

We just have to be brave enough to keep telling the stories, no matter the cost.

If your computer is "image impaired", here is a transcript of the note that was taken during a tech rehearsal for this show: "It was generally agreed by all that the show was "kind of rough" (tech wise). But after the show we learned that there was a 5 year old autistic child in the house. He had never spoken. But as the lights went down, he began to talk. In full sentences. He called the teacher by name. She had no idea he even knew her name. He was engaged in the show - at one point commenting to the teacher that if there is a dragon then there will be fire. And there was fire. He talked all throughout the show. When the lights came back up - he quit talking and returned to his world. So, yes, I could list all the little things that went wrong today but that is not what this show is about. And that little boy certainly didn't see those things as he sat talking in the dark theatre watching Harold and his Purple Crayon."

Keep story-telling, storytellers.

If you aren't watching ABC's "Once Upon a Time" on Sunday nights, you should be.

Especially if you are a pastor, or work or lead in the creative arts at a church.

See if this sounds familiar: a show takes on fairy tales of old, by taking these old, familiar stories and repackaging them in a way that not only makes them fresh for a new audience but plays upon the collective memory of the old story itself, so that one is simultaneously drawn to the the old, old story but are now witnessing that old story in a new light. Sound familiar?

The show itself runs into trouble from time to time with some less-than-stellar dialogue, and some very obvious CG, but its efforts in telling a story of good and evil, not to mention addressing omnipotent characters and the handling of characters within such a story, well, they are commendable, and there is a lot to learn from them.

Right now you can still see the show for free, streaming all the episodes on abc.com. Check it out and tell me what you think!

And if you want to hear more from me on the topic, download the January 10 episode of the Pop Culture Pulpit Podcast. You can subscribe through iTunes by clicking here.

On Monday, I read a blog post from Tim Schraeder, a friend of mine who consults in the arena of church communication. He has written/compiled a brand new book called Outspoken, and is generally a totally awesome, humble guy. You should follow him on twitter, read his blog, buy his book, and stalk him relentlessly.

His post was called “A Plea for Originality”, and his argument is that our churches need to foster originality, that the world needs it, needs it from our churches, and that when we borrow/steal/grab from pop culture, or even other churches, to get our message across, we run the risk of becoming unoriginal, which can lead to becoming inauthentic, uninspired, or lazy.

If you would like, take a moment to read his entire post, because in my post, I would like to respectfully disagree with some of his assertions. I think he uses a killer example and makes an effective broad brush stroke, but I think there is something to be gained from taking a look at “the other side” of the argument.

Okay, here goes: Tim starts by showing some horrifying pictures of how the “Microsoft” store is copying the Apple Store with its look and feel, and how that reminded him of how unoriginal churches seem like the Microsoft in this scenario. He wrote, of the Microsoft store:

I wasn’t the only one who snapped a picture of the Microsoft Store and muttered words of displeasure over this blatant forgery. It’s hard to deny or hide, especially since the Apple Store was just a few storefronts down.

Then he connected that to the churches who are doing the same thing, in his mind. As he puts it, these churches

… take a great idea or concept and adapt their own cheapened version of it and claim it as their own.

Whether it’s taking cues from pop culture or “borrowing” an idea from another church, many churches are plagued with unoriginality. The end result is that to many people in the communities they are trying to reach, like the Microsoft Store, they can come across as unoriginal, inauthentic, uninspired, and lazy.

Okay, on one hand, I agree with the premise. I’m a creative guy. I like to think of creative ideas, and I like to express those creative ideas in the local church. I am grateful to Community Christian Church for giving me a platform to be able to do so with our very creative teams. And everyone who is responsible for creating in a church, should do exactly that. They should create.

But to put “cues from pop culture” or “borrowing ideas from other churches” exclusively in the category of being unoriginal, is not only throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but also coming close to excavating the entire tub.

A creative brainstorm can and should include source material from which you derive inspiration, and emulate content. There is no reason to be afraid of such things. Originality is not the same word as creative. There is a reason those are different words in the dictionary.

Let’s go back to Tim’s example. Let’s pretend for a minute that the Microsoft Store was not two doors down from the Apple Store, but rather, so far away and remote that literally, no one who walked by had any notion that there was such a thing as an Apple Store. What would that customer’s experience be? If Microsoft has learned by watching Apple and has emulated their shopping environment, and the customer is none the wiser, and has a great experience, then what is the harm to that customer? If they are satisfied with the product, it works well, and they have only good things to say about it, in what way is that particular use of these ideas damaging?

In many of the churches I’ve come across, I, as a practitioner, know that the song is by Chris Tomlin. I know that series title came from Andy Stanley. I am aware that Elevation church created that video. Or that the hilarious video I just watched (many currently available at www.bigidearesources.com) was from Community Christian. But does anyone else? Do they need to know? Is there a responsibility for a “full disclosure” statement in our programs with sources and links to the originals? I don’t think so. If it works, use it – God is not telling you to reinvent the wheel on principle.

But let’s stick with the example. Apple is creative, yes. And their products are killer. Typing on one now. But try going into the Apple Store to buy an Apple printer. You can’t. Don’t get me wrong, you can buy a printer there, it’s just not made by Apple. Cause they don’t make those anymore. I used to have an Apple laser printer back in the 90s (actually, it’s still in my house somewhere), but alas, Apple in a fit of un-creativity has “borrowed” printers from other churches and is selling them in their store. How unoriginal, right?

No, not right. Apple decided to unleash their creativity in one area of their core business by releasing another area to other experts. Printing? Sure, we could make awesome Apple printers. But if we let other people do that, then we can come up with the iPad.

Tim grants us that there are “no original ideas”, but then dismisses the possibility that God can use someone else’s original idea and repurpose it in a new environment. I agree with Tim that inspired design and creativity shouldn’t be rare in the church. But neither should sharing. And collaboration. And when we stick to our guns on one end of the spectrum, we miss out on the opportunities the other has to offer. Sometimes the best way to inspire new creativity is by celebrating (and using) the creativity of others.

It is possible to access and repurpose art in a church environment without being lazy or cheapening the image of Christ. It isn’t easy, and the traps that Tim describes are there, but it’s not a reason to dismiss it entirely.

So be original? Yes. But more importantly, be creative. And creativity must include using other sources. We make a lot of original content at our church, but we also purchase great video content from Worship House Media, we beg other churches to let us use their idea, or use their videos, we look to see what works and we use it. And I hope that others do the same with us. It turns out that when you work at a church, you must provide content 52 weeks of the year. No one has the wherewithal to remain completely authentically un-dilutedly original for fifty-two weeks in a row. It is literally impossible. Your brain would explode.

Except maybe this year. Since Christmas is on a Sunday, a lot of churches are taking that Sunday off. So, yeah, you could do it in 51. But not 52. That’s crazy.

Thoughts? Reactions?

Anyone wanna buy an Apple Printer antique?

In podcast #66 of the Pop Culture Pulpit, I spoke about today being not just Halloween, but JesusWeen. Listen to that here.

In the meantime, Happy Jesus-ween, and enjoy this article I found today all about how the church needs to do Zombie-outreach, the right way.

Have a great October 31st!

Back in 1994, I bought my first Mac. It was a IIvx, with a CDROM drive and a Floppy. It had 8M of memory and a 40M hard drive.

It was awesome. I learned what Tetris was and began the process of accessing music on a computer. You could put in the song and album titles of your CD's when they were playing, and the computer would remember what they were later - amazing!

I also composed my first full length musical in grad school with the midi software that worked so seamlessly with the computer. Good times, good times. Still have it in the house somewhere - just sitting there not plugged into anything. Can't seem to throw it away.

Just feeling sentimental about Apple for some reason. Can't remember why. It'll come to me, I'm sure. Pardon the interruption. Back to our Jobs.

I have to say that I am eagerly anticipating the final film installment of the Harry Potter series next week. Almost as much as I am the opening of Epic Theatre Company's production of The Mystery of Irma Vep... Almost.

Got excited today as I caught nine small clips that MTV has leaked from the film - check them out below if you simply can't wait until next week!

And get your tickets to Mystery of Irma Vep too!

And if you're a fan of the show LOST, you should too. It's part two of an EW wrap up article about the spiritual significance of the show, it's themes, and what they might "really" mean... Good stuff!

Check it out here.

...and by hate of course, I mean love.

Here's my quote from April 20:

Scotty: Swingin' - I nearly did a spit-take when he reminded me that he was only 17. He's so ridiculously good. I am wondering though about the microphone placement though after that video opening. If he isn't in the bottom three, after going first and getting slightly negative feedback from the judges, then he will WIN. Those are two strikes that others have not been able to battle against.

And, he was not in the bottom three that week, and last night, he won. Boom. Congrats to Scotty!

Hey everybody- I know there was some concern in the blogosphere because I posted a non-american idol post earlier today, and blew out my blogging chords. But I promise, my doctor has come out and reported on my condition, and we are prepared to move on. Here are my thoughts on this night of performance, one day earlier than I'm used to doing:


Scotty - Gone - great pick to start the evening. 

Lauren - Damage is done - appropriate title given the state of her vocal chords. At first I thought it was a little much to bring out the doctor, but if you didn't know that and heard that performance you would be wondering what went wrong.

Scotty - Check Yes Or No - Good song - right up his alley. He is here to kick tail and take names.

Lauren - Maybe it was Memphis - She looks like she's in a fog - Her last song had better just kill it otherwise it won't be a fair fight.

Taio Cruz - Positive - Negative.

Scotty - I Love You This Big - This song works, but the chorus isn't great for his voice. And "big" is not a great word to sing, in general. 

Lauren - Like My Mother Does - Okay, that was great. Finally we have a competition - that song was so superior to Scotty's from a songwriting perspective. And can you go wrong with a young adult teenager singing to her mom?

It's funny to me how all season the routine is that the first night was always the big one to watch and the results show was always a throwaway, just tell us who won. And then the last week, the first night is the throwaway, and the big finale results show has U2 and Spiderman on it.

Who's gonna win it? Who will be in it to win it tomorrow night? Will Spiderman fall on Bono? Or will he walk on the Edge?

Well it's been an interesting week for pop culture, everyone getting over the fact that no one obviously Christian had been raptured after Saturday had passed. There were several items I saw on the pop culture landscape today that I thought were worth mentioning, so here goes:

First, it's been exactly one year since LOST gave us a Series Finale worth talking about. Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen offers up part one of a commemorative piece about the show and its themes today, focusing in on the spiritual themes of the show and his take on them. You can read that article here.

Secondly, Lady Gaga released "Born This Way" the complete CD today - I had the opportunity yesterday at Starbucks to stream the entire collection on my computer, and I have to say that her faithful re-creation of the best parts of eighties music arrangement and production was practically a religious experience for me. But lyrically, she has never been more in tune with exploring the spiritual side of things: songs about God, Jesus, Mary, Judas... she may be picking and choosing from the religion buffet table lyrically, but she knows a great pop riff when she steals (writes) it...

And third, it was announced today that Mark Burnett of "Survivor" fame has been contracted by the History Channel to create a series called "The Bible", which will combine live-action and CG effects to tell selected stories of the Bible. Could be interesting. Read a tiny article about that here.

And if you would prefer to listen to my dulcet tones describing that which I see all around me in the world of pop culture through the internets and directly onto your favorite mp3 player, please subscribe to my podcast! The Pop Culture Pulpit is ready for you - just uploaded a new episode yesterday - and if you have listened to the show and enjoyed it, I would love it if you headed over to the iTunes page and left positive feedback. Apparently that kind of feedback is very valuable in that area of the internets... so help me help me!