The Creative Commons Church

Watch your toes...

I want to put in my plug for more Creative Commons churches.

One of the beautiful things about the age we're living in is the unlimited potential to share. Where sermons and art and music used to take years to circumnavigate the globe, now, they take less than seconds. We have the ability to share what we create in our local Christian communities with the larger Christian community and with the world. But not many of us do it.

Why?

I can think of a couple of reasons...

Some are making money.
There's gold in them thar hills! Churches... strike that... pastors are literally desperate for creative materials, for help in the area of music and art/visual resources.

And while I understand the impulse to commercially meet that demand with our supply, I certainly don't think it's best. It seems to me that the mixture of commerce and spirituality always ends badly... and degrades everyone who takes part in that mixture.

Many churches have full time media/music/creative professionals. I'm okay with that (having been one). Many churches have also started their own media businesses, selling what has been created for their community to other communities. I'm less okay with that. I tend to see it as "double dipping."
When I spend time, time when I'm "on the clock", to create something for my community, I have been compensated. My time has been paid for. I create, and I give to my community the gift of what God has allowed me to create. However, when I turn around and market that, I, or my community, is making moeny off of what should be an act of worship.

That's where it starts to get dicey.

Do I think it's wrong to sell creative works? Not at all. If a musician or a video artist takes his or her time to create something that he or she feels would be helpful to a church community, I think they have the right to sell that work to others.

It's the selling of things created on "community time" for a specific community's use that I disagree with. It's the selling of that which would otherwise sit on a shelf... and it's the selling of things created for the worship of God that bothers me.

For example...

Many pastors package their sermons and sell them in book form. Fine. I think pastors should be able to write books and sell them. My issue is when the content of that book was created during time paid for by a community, in the course of pastoral duties for a community, for the edification of a community. Now, it certainly costs to distribute a book... So clearly, something has to be charged for that. And I can understand charging for a CD of your sermon to cover material charges...

But in the age of downloads when the cost to produce and distribute has dropped to essentially zero, how do we justify charging someone $2 or $3 to listen to the message I preached for my community last week? Or my sermon manuscript? Or selling the powerpoint created for my sermon? Or the song created for our worship service?

We need to see churches large and small giving away what they produce for the greater good of the Body of Christ.

Some are worried about others stealing their jive. Well, here's where I can think of two helpful concepts. The first legal and the second spiritual.

When you license the things you put out under a Creative Commons license, you can choose what level of rights you retain. You can specify whether others must attribute to you, whether they can change, reproduce, create derivitive works etc. Check it out. There's no reason you can't safely distribute everything you create, knowing that you will receve credit and no one else will make money off of your creativity without your permission.

But the bigger issue here is spiritual...

Think back to the last sermon you heard/preached on stewardship. It's all God's, we say. We offer back to Him only what He has given to us first, we say.

Well, God has given your community the gift of musicians, artists, writers, speakers... If not all of them, probably one or more of them. There's something your community does that other communities could benefit from.

And now, with blogs and podcasts, and Flickr and Google... With the world at both your fingertips and your doorstep, there's no reason not to share what God has given you.

Freely you have recieved...

Comments

[david]

1. i totally agree. i have real issues with selling God's truth. Even if he's granted it to me.

2. how does this play into your view of video venues?

[bob]

Ha! I'm not advocating the giving away of entire services by video for the purpose of replacing the local gathering/the creativity of a local church.
I hope churches do make available video, audio, powerpoint, etc.

I hope other churches have the presence of mind to see those things as inspirtation/addition to their own creativity and not complete replacements for it.

In all things, moderation!

[david]

i know what you're arguing, but i wonder if there is a little room to consider...

why can't a small community of believers that finds itself without a gifted Bible teacher approach another church and ask to use the videos/cassettes (small churches may not be as technically astute) of their teacher?

and if that would be okay? why not a video venue?

[joe]

hi bob...

a friend of mine and i have just started the very thing you're talking about...a place to swap ideas, dialogue and download FREE original resources. the site isn't 100% perfect yet (maybe someone can help out for free?) but our mandate is clear: we want to share freely and help especially those churches and leaders that are under resourced!

check it out! and don't let the canadian part scare you off :)

www.thinkerlabs.ca

[bob]

David-

I don't think it would be okay...
At least on any long term basis.

I know churches that have had to use CDs to sing along to... until God answered their prayers for people to lead in worship.
I'm glad they had the technology of CDs and the gift of other community's worship to piggy back off of... and I'm even more gld they didn't let that resource keep them from praying, asking, begging God to bring them musicians.

"why can't a small community of believers that finds itself without a gifted Bible teacher approach another church and ask to use the videos/cassettes (small churches may not be as technically astute) of their teacher?"

Because then that small community might never have a gifted Bible teacher. They would not need to pray for one, they would not need to train one, they would not make room for one...

I don't think a community needs its own powerpoint person. It can borrow liberally on that and many other areas... but I do think biblically a community needs its own teachers.
Pastors should take inspiration from other pastor's sermons, use many resources in preparation- and then preach their own sermons.
If there's no pastor, then one of the qualifications for elder is "able to teach." So SOMEONE in that church should be able to string together some edifying thoughts from Scripture. If no one can teach, then you really don't have elders... and you really don't have a church.

I think communities should take ideas for worship experience stuff and make them their own. Borrow songs from other communities but do their best to develop their own songwriters and their own songs of worship to God.

And then share it all with everyone :)

Joe- That's awesome. It;s a great looking site. I'm going to check it out at length when I'm done with my sermon :)

[jeremy]

I love what your saying Bob. When Joe and I put thinkerlabs together we talked a lot about what we hoped people would get out of the site. We didn't want to create a place where people came to purchase/steal/borrow ideas/resources/services wholesale but instead a place where we could share ideas, be inspired by each other and motivated to create our own new interpretations and ideas.

I want to help inspire creativity in other churches/settings not replace it with my own.

[Craig OBrien]

Right on! The Gospel is free. The dramtic marker of Jesus' ministry was that the good news was preached to the poor. In this vein the team at the CCSB (www.ccsb.ca) has launched a great free resource at www.e-quip.net You will need to register but a lot of great training is availabe in video and power point form. This is an evolving resource that will continue to grow and morph.

[Ed C]

This is a very insightful discussion that offers a balanced perspective (I think so at least). I appreciate your distinction between what is done by an individual and what is done by/for a community. I think that churches can find some creative ways to make their material more available, but still support the artists, writers, and musicians in their ranks.

I think that non-profits in general could benefit from this post.

[Pam Hogeweide]

i've had some interesting conversations lately about the whole copyright thing. i'd love to see a revolution in regards to this.

i was at a large christian ministry in kansas city, mo a few months ago. the leader said that any of their self-published material was available for duplicating, rewriting, claim it as your own, "We don't care! It's about the message, we want to get this message out." When you enter the bookstore of this same ministry there are signs posted that say the same thing. How refreshing. And it wasn't just fluff material, but some intense bible stuff, studies, books, teaching cd's...

one last word about articles on the internet and copyrights in regard to intellectual property : I do think credit is due and it's polite to acknowledge whom you are quoting are whose writings you are posting. I think the internet has opened up the ability to exchange our intellectual property with incredible ease, as opposed to the written word, the publishing world, which is pretty much an educate-white-male- dominated industry.

[dale baker]

Hmm. If you make your living from teaching, or writing songs or (in my case, playing drums) I think it's fair that you get paid for being a skilled laborer (or craftsman). And if your labors are then used for a derivative work, I think it's fair that you get paid for that derivative work as well. I don't think it's a conflict of interest to be paid and to offer your talents in worship. Is that to say that all pastors who are paid to teach and preach aren't worshipping when they are doing that which they feel God has called them to do?

I think it's great that you're discussing Creative Commons as it relates to Church Ministry, but I'm afraid that some will continue to not see the value in paying their workers (for lack of a better term) a fair wage for their (the worker's) time, skill and preparation (college education, years of experience, discernment and wisdom) in getting to a place where they can consistently be counted on to lead others in worship.

Thanks for a great blog post!