LOVE YOUR ROOTS

Here's a strange truth: if we are to become radical innovators, we need to allow ourselves to rediscover our roots. At heart, innovation is all about renovation.

We all come from different parts of the body: some of us come from very traditional denominations, others from new churches planted into very new settings, but everyone has a story, a history, a spiritual past, a journey that has been handed down through the people who shaped us. 

It's tempting, as we strive to be creative, to simply discount everything that has happened more than five years, months or minutes ago, but if we're to truly reach the heights of expression that God intends for each of us, we need to learn to stand on the shoulders of those who went before us. 

We have a phrase we come back to time and time again: we want to allow the best of the old to shape and challenge us to bring the best of the new. So, take a look at an old hymn book for inspiration, chat with some older people about their stories of faith, read some inspiring biographies or histories of your movement. Rather than finding yourself bored and restricted, often you'll find that they will inspire you to innovate.

I came across this the other day from Avery Dulles: "Paradoxically, therefore, the most innovative artists and scientists have often been the most deeply traditional. Each renaissance has been, at root, a ressourcement. Literary revolutionaries such as T. S. Eliot were deeply immersed in the classical sources. James Joyce's Ulysses must be understood against the background of a long tradition stretching back to Homer.

As worship leaders, if we want to shape a radical future for worship in our generation, we must soak ourselves in the incredible stories, creativity and lessons of the past. We'll find that they inspire us to be even more radical and innovative than we could ever have dreamed of had we only lived in the now.