It is less a contrast than it is a similarity. Two men, both highly educated Jews, both bold and passionate preachers of the message of the Gospel, both leaders in the first century Church.  Paul and Apollos were both used by God to build His Kingdom in the precarious, turbulent infancy of the Christian faith.  But only one of these men still has a ministry today.  Indeed, Paul’s contribution to the New Testament is central to our understanding of the Gospel.

Why is Paul’s influence greater than that of Apollos?  Spiritual calling aside, there seems a simple reason:  He Wrote Stuff Down.

I’m a big Writer of Stuff.  I have To-Do lists, archives of song lyrics, sermons and speeches, unpublished books and written meanderings.  According to the stats counter, my personal blog site just hit 100 blog entries last week.  I even have an archive of carefully documented calendars that stretches back to my freshman year in college, which I can’t bear to throw out.  What if I suddenly need to know what I did during the summer of 1984?

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Our twin girls, Rachel and Paige, just started Middle School, and in the course of this last summer, they seem to have transformed before our eyes.  As one would expect, there is a sudden hyper-heightened awareness to the things of their age, like appearance, style, clothing, friendships, pop culture.  And music.

It is one of our new family rituals now, that they would usurp control over the car radio during trips, commutes, and even errand running.  Step one: Slip into the back seat, talking non-stop.  Step 2: Flip from sports talk radio (my default setting) to the local pop station.  Step 3: Turn up nine decibels.  Rihanna, Shontelle, Pink, and Lady Gaga suddenly invade my Ford Explorer, and I find myself feeling really old, as I internally resist the urge to yell, "get off my lawn," in a graveled raspy voice, and pop in a Steely Dan CD.

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The most recent edition of Newsweek Magazine is bannered with the title, "The Creativity Crisis."  The feature article describes a scientifically measured decline in the collective CQ (creativity quotient) of American children and adults.  According to the article, "With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling."

The article goes on to describe the necessity of human creativity, an "undisputed" need that goes far beyond the artistic connection—it affects our ability to sustain economic growth, to deliver health care, to even bring peace to Afghanistan.  Creativity is a valued attribute, and yet, the United States' collective creativity is declining.

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We’re here this Sunday morning in the lobby of What’s Happening Community Church, located in the suburbs of Caucasian Falls, USA.  A couple new to the church has just exited the service and has approached the preaching pastor.  Let’s listen in.

Pastor:  Good morning!  You’re new, right?

Joe:  Hi. Yes,  I’m Joe and this is my wife, Jill.

Pastor:  Great to have you here this morning.

Jill:  Yes, first time here.  Really loved the service.

Pastor:  Well, God bless you both.

Joe:  Do you have a moment? We were just wondering if we could ask you a few questions.

Pastor: Sure. Fire away.

Joe: How many services do you have here?

Note:  This is code for, “I like to sleep in late on Sundays.”

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One of the things that we do as a local church is open our facilities to outside performing arts organizations.  We believe that to be a part of the greater arts community in our area, we need to serve the greater arts community.  So our church has hosted arts organizations like the city-wide philharmonic, the community symphony, private non-profit theater companies, and the local concert association, to name a few.  We have an amazing group of technical artists at our church, and their volunteer service to these different organizations is in itself a testimony to these secular groups.  Also, we have probably the best designed and equipped performing arts auditorium in town, which has not gone unnoticed to the larger arts community.

Lately, we have been host to the local community college's drama department.  They've presented one other full-length play—Shakespeare's Henry V—on our campus so far, and our relationship with them has gone extremely well.  Their last foray was "The Putnam County Spelling Bee," a Tony Award-winning musical about six pre-teen youth thrown together in the competitive subculture of the spelling bee.  The production was inventive, the acting was excellent, the music was more than credible.  And one other thing.  The script was, well, bawdy.

Now the production was selected after the college booked our facility.  And we frankly didn't know about the content of the play until after it was in production.  But it still put us in a quirky and uncomfortable position—how do we respond to the inappropriateness of this play, and to the people putting it on?

So this is what we did: Nothing.  I internally braced myself for the outcry of criticisms from our congregation, but frankly, it never came.  The play ran it's course without incident.  I think it's because our people generally understood that the content of the play had little to do with what we believe as a church.  Interestingly, the only ones who voiced objections to the content of the play were the non-Christians who were involved in the play, not our church fellowship. And our technical artists used those conversations as a springboard for sharing their faith, as they interacted with them during the production.

Ultimately, the issue is not whether or not there are inappropriate words.  I think the real issue is how do we respond in a relationship with those who may not share our faith.  If I invite my neighbor to dinner, and he swears when he talks, do I still try to be his friend?  

Of course, there are lines that must be drawn.  I certainly wouldn't want my neighbor swearing in front of my young children.  And I wouldn't have him taking the Lord's name in vain.  But if Jesus really was a Friend to Sinners—a title He wore proudly—then whatever we do, be it host a performing arts organization or simply go out to coffee with the director, I must do it with love as my primary motivation. 

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Recently, a friend sent me a technical paper entitled, "Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity" by Sing Lin, Ph. D.  Now, I'm always looking for a little light reading, so I dove right into it.  The paper cites Dr. Leo Esaki, a Nobel Laureate, who claimed that:

"...Most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age. "

The paper concludes, "The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32."  It goes so far as to imply that one should plan for one's creativity to wane and to be prepared for other roles as you mature in your career.

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Joe looked across the coffee table from me, a spark in his eyes revealing his eagerness.  He leaned into his next question.  "So.  What did you think?  I really want to know,"  he asked between sips of his latte.  "And don't hold back either.  I want to get some good feedback that I can take with me."

It was three weeks earlier that Joe had first contacted me about a play he was producing at a local church.  He had written and produced it over the last three years, and fancied himself a serious writer and craftsman.  Passionate and energetic, it was obvious that he was driven to produce this play, and was personally attached to it at many levels.  And so he sought out people in the area, "influential" people I suspect, to help further his production and gain credibility.

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I have long been an advocate for sustained relationships between local worship leaders/pastors. When I meet a young worship leader, one of the questions I may ask them is, "Where are you in fellowship with other worship leaders like yourself?" It is an important question—one that exposes our attitudes about ministry, mission, worship, and even ourselves. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I guess if I were to start at the beginning, it would be about twenty years ago. A small fellowship of senior pastors in our area, the Twin Lakes Christian Ministerial Association, has been meeting faithfully every week for about twenty years. The group shares their struggles and successes, and they pray for one another—and one another's churches.  In this era of church shopping and hopping, it may come as a surprise to the people in our area that their local pastors know and care deeply for one another. In fact, I think it is one of the hidden, longstanding strengths of our community — that the Christian pastors of our area are united in friendship and in faith.

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This blog isn't about Jennifer Knapp.  I don't know her.  I've never met her.  And because of that, I don't feel qualified to comment on her, other than to say that we should pray for her.

What I do want to talk about is the legitimacy of art.  In other words, does the life of the artist affect the legitimacy of that person's art? What is the integrity of the art, if there is no integrity in the author of that art?  Put in terms of the painfully topical, how do the life choices of Jennifer Knapp affect the music of Jennifer Knapp?

I ask this question because I've read a variety of comments from people who are quick to abandon her previously released music, much of which is, in my opinion, pretty good stuff.  Obviously, everyone will have an opinion on this.  But before you start burning her CDs, I'd like to offer you a perspective.

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My eleven year-old daughter, Rachel, has wanted to play the harp for as long as she can remember.  When the twins were very little, Amy Shreve, a Nashville-based harpist and songwriter, played at our church, and we purchased her CDs.  So Rachel and Paige would often go to bed listening to her harp music, and somewhere between the bedtime stories and dawn's breaking, Rachel's dream to play the harp was born.

Recently, Amy and her husband Gary toured through northern California and played at my church.  It was a God-breathed service, as they helped lead worship in a very intimate in-the-round venue.  After the service, Amy was gracious enough to allow Rachel and Paige the opportunity to sit behind her harp and play it.  As Rachel sat at this beautiful concert harp, gently strumming the strings, I could sense a rightness in the moment—her Mona Lisa smile, her wide-eyed wonderment, an internal contentment in her soul, and the beautiful sounds that immersed us.  She told me later that she felt an indescribable peace in her heart when she played it.

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