Often the church tries to copy and paste from previous performances (unimaginatively reflecting their favorite decade/century), even trying its best to remove individuality all together. Our created uniqueness is not some enemy of truth, it is just another part of the truth we believe and hold to.

My previous post was a call to re-imagine the familiar. Specifically, for the church to continually mine out the new realities of ancient truths. If something is truly universal, it will always have an aspect of the new in it. Universal truth will always be able to be contextualized into the present time.

But this can be risky. We can (and will) easily mess up and make mistakes. In the church this is really frowned upon. Sometimes the unwritten rule of being a member of a church is just that: don’t mess up. But that’s not what we’re really called to.

If we live in fear, the worst thing we can do is play a wrong note. That makes individuality the enemy. Don’t rock the boat, keep the status quo. It’s not super great, but it’s not horrible, either. This way of living sees God as a disapproving Father who is quick to punish.

If we live in grace, wrong notes are assumed to be played. Our wrong notes don’t hold us back from being the humans we were created to be, but they continually draw us in the Creator as we attune our ears to His melody. This way of living sees God as He defines Himself: a loving, powerful and present being.

Copy and paste is the work of fear. A Christian is called to something more. Keep testing, keep rearranging, keep investigating and constructing new and interesting harmonies. The world is waiting for these songs to be sung with full lungs and full hearts.