Dear the Church.
(Well, this was going to start out as a post about why I love designing things, but turned into a rant… perhaps I shall post a follow-up)
This Summer I have was given responsibility of promotions for The Rock. This meant that I was in charge of overseeing the creation of all of our literature (propaganda) that would go into people¹s hands at the beginning of the year. This excited me to no end.
You see, I have a huge passion for the presentation of Christianity (in general) to the world. I feel that in general, over the last thirty years, the church has given itself the reputation of being passé, outdated, and generally out-of-touch.
For the most part, our literature is generated with Microsoft word, using clip art and Comic Sans font. Our Web sites have animated .gif¹s and obnoxious repetitive background patterns that make everything impossible to read, (some even have cheesy midi music playing in the background). I didn¹t link to any of these sites, but it would take me about 30 seconds to find a good example. Food at our social gatherings consist of cookies, and punch served in little Dixie cups. Our music is nicey-nice and contrived at best, nails-on-chalkboard atrocious at worst. In short, we haven¹t done ourselves any favors from a presentation point of view.
Now, I realize fully that the only thing that really matters is the message, right? We don¹t need to be flashy, or worldly, or cool to communicate the Good News of Christ. In fact, I¹m pretty sure it is impossible to ³out-cool² the devil (from the World¹s definition of sex-drugs-and-rock n roll cool). But let me set the record straight.
Presentation is a large part of your message!
The message we have been sending the world for the last two decades is that we have no clue what is going on with them, and that we don¹t care enough about ourselves to present our message with anything less than excellence. Photocopied all-black-text-with-some-clip-art-graphics flyers send a message to the people you give them to: Lame. Unprofessional. Half-hearted. Music played (or mixed) by people with no sense of rhythm, little musical ability, and no creativity will simply be mocked.
I am proud of my brothers and sisters that we are realizing this and trying to change towards a higher standard of quality in our presentation. But now we are faced with a new problem: Lack of creativity. This is something that I personally am plagued with a lot of the time.
We have simply tried to copy what the world is doing with design, with music, with our language and literature and we get a new name: copycats. We have moved from being 10 years behind the times to something almost worse, being two years behind the times. So now, instead of being quaint, nostalgic, or cute; we are simply poor, slow mimics.
I know for a fact that there are creative people out there. I can even have a flash of creativity from time to time. When are we going to be bold and take back our rightful place as innovators of art, literature, and music? When are we going to stop holding onto our dear traditionalism, or our fear of not being cool, and try something new with music, rather than trying to copy current trends (because if you are copying a current trend, you are already most likely a year behind.)
I have to believe that God has given his body creative people, and I know we follow the ultimate graphic designer (have you SEEN a sunset or mountain-scape lately? And how about those Hubble pictures?).
Maybe we need to start innovating.
matt, i agree! i’ve often found myself embarassed of my “brothers and sisters” in the last 7 years since i got back from africa. nothing seems to distinguish us from the world more than our lack of innovation these days.
I had a similar conversation with a friend. We were talking about school, and I was very strong on the point that I do not want to transfer to a Christian school for a degree in some sort of media art (right now it’s film). She asked me why and the answer was simply because Christians don’t know how to make the stuff correctly. Other than Extreme Days and the older Veggie Tales, there are simply NO good movies made by Christians. Even The Passion was made by someone who learned from the sectular market.
I was at a wedding the other day, and I noticed that on the wall at the church (no clue as to the denomination) that there were flyers for their college ministry, which they called “The Rock”. But flyer’s problem was…..CLIPART! When you see an cartoon rock with words pasted over it that aren’t evem anti-aliased…..it’s pretty disgusting. I remember thinking how ineffective that piece of paper must have been.
Thankfully, and with no slight to anyone out there, creativity is not something I struggle with. If things work out with The Rock in Chicago, we will probably be slowly moving away from the whole “Experience The Revolution” theme. It’s simply like Matt said. We have to stay a step ahead.
PS the church with The Rock was not a Great Commision Church.
Here’s what I am wondering — people have been knocking comic sans as a font ever since I can remember. Was it ever cool or trendy? I recall the first time I saw it (maybe 1996 or 1997) and I used in continuously for a year or two because I liked it so much. But I might have had no taste. :) Completely possible.
Greg,
Your last paragraph concerns me a bit. Make sure you keep a team of council and other creatives around you. As I do, you may have weaknesses/blindspots that can be evened out/covered over by a team that is working together.
i have always and continue to enjoy comic sans! however, i don’t design things! :)
matt.
I got two sides to all this.
It says Jesus was humble in apprerance. I want to be careful not to put an emphasis everything looking cool as the big thing to focus on. On the other hand, my brother Chris was to have heart surgery a few years ago. I don’t want some doctor to work on my brothers heart just because the doctor is a chiristian. I want to best doctor in the world! The same goes from arts and christianity. I have alot of people at church tell me that I care too much about how my music sounds. My pastors encourage me that, “Just put something together, No one will really be able to tell if it isn’t perfect.” That response really bothers me. We don’t want pastors who are living lifes that are “just try to live as right as you can do easily, no one will be able to tell if it isn’t as good as you would like it to be.” As far as I am concerned, I am a music leader and what I do is music. I am going to be the best worship leader (musically speaking) that there is. No one is going to be as good at guitar as me. (don’t take that overboard, I am just saying, I am going to push myself to be the best I can be) David says, I won’t bring an offering that costs me nothing.
I don’t think alot of that will make sense but hopefully you follow a bit.
-justin
Since this is an “old” blog, no one will probably ever read this, but I had a thought while reading it and the comments that followed.
It seems what Matt (and all of us) are looking for is what could be called Divine creativity. A stroke of brilliance that comes from God and not from a Fortune 500 marketing scheme. Well friends, to get that you need a deep walk with God, time to be still and reflect on His greatness, and a hunger to make His name famous. I believe that is what it took to compose great songs like Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Art.
Our society/ lifestyle fights against this. We must fight back if we are ever to regain a reputation of excellence and sincerety.
WORD Tim, very true. Great observation.
Adam