I’m in magazine article mode these days. Trying to finish up three deadlines before I head to the Galapagos. Here is an excerpt from one of the articles I’m working on.

Routinization

Here is one of the central tasks of pastoral leadership: keeping what is sacred from becoming routine.

I read a fascinating study a few years ago that suggested that we stop thinking about the lyrics of a song after hearing it thirty times. That has profound implications when it comes to worship. If we aren’t careful, we stop worshiping in spirit and in truth and start lip syncing. Maybe that’s why the Psalmist exhorts us eight times to sing a new song.

Maybe a central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a pastor of discipleship is to keep spiritual disciplines from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?

Let me put the challenge in neurological context.

Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Longitudinal studies have shown that the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from right-to-left as we age. In other words, memory overtakes imagination. At some point, most of us stop imagining the future and start repeating the past. Our leadership shift from right-to-left, and if we aren’t careful, serving God can become routine.

That neurological tendency has significant implications when it comes to pastoral leadership. How do we keep prayer from becoming an empty incantation? How do we keep Bible reading from becoming rote? How do we keep church from becoming nothing more than a religious obligation?

The Element of Surprise

We have a core value at National Community Church: expect the unexpected. That value is based on a cross-section of gospel episodes that reveal the creative leadership style of Jesus. Jesus always had a surprise up his sleeve. I think the disciples lived in a state of perpetual shock at the things Jesus did.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath, walked on water, threw a temple tantrum, cursed a fig tree, partied with tax collectors, talked with Samaritans, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

In other words, Jesus was predictably unpredictable and that is one reason why the Pharirazzi wanted to kill him. He was too unorthodox for their linear and logical left-brains, but he did capture the right-brain imagination of the masses.

I think we grossly underestimate just how unconventional Jesus was. And the question is this: are we following in his leadership footsteps?

One of my prime objectives at National Community Church is to keep church from becoming routine. And I think that is one reason why 71% of our regular attenders come from an unchurched or dechurched background.

We try to overcome routinization in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is as simple as changing our order of service. We’ll do responsive worship following a message instead of preparatory worship before a message. We’ll often turn our movie theater screen into postmodern stained glass and use videos to communicate the gospel story in moving pictures. And we try to celebrate communion in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we’ll serve communion in trays the old-fashioned way, but other times we’ll put the elements in a small canvass communion bag that attenders receive on the way into church. Or we’ll have people write out a confession and nail it to a cross before taking communion. Our goal is to make communion a fresh experience every time we come to the Lord’s Table.

One Sunday a few years ago, we did away with our normal service all together. Instead of sitting in one theater for an entire service, we set up a message theater, worship theater, and communion theater and let people go on a self-paced, self-guided journey. That Journey Sunday was slightly awkward for regular attenders, but that is healthy. It keeps us from going through the motions.

Part of right-brain leadership is throwing an occasional change-up or curve ball to keep people on their toes. And that can be as simple as moving the piano, changing your staging, or giving your bulletin an extreme makeover.