So hang on a minute what gives? How can you pursue innovation and creativity, yet seemingly limit yourself by holding to a set of rules? Surely this flies in the face of everything we have been taught about innovation? Isn’t the creative person the one who lives without restrictions? Is not the artist the rule breaker? Therefore a network which is trying to break new ground in the soil of 21st century culture must be severely limiting its chances of success by placing itself under sets of rules and creeds?

In short the answer is no. Paradoxically rules and limitations increase our ability to think and operate creatively. Let me explain. Take two groups of filmmakers, tell one group that they are to make a short film, tell them that it can be about anything, that there are no rules and that they can do whatever they want. Now tell the other group that they must make a short film featuring an orange and an Austrian gentleman named Helmut. Now watch the group with no limits fruitlessly brainstorm, argue and drown in their sea of freedom. In contrast watch the group with imposed limitations creatively come alive in response to the challenge set before them. Why? Because rules and limits create a field in which we can play and operate.

Imagine football without rules and referees. It is the rules that make the game; the boundaries create an environment where we find ourselves blissfully jumping up and down in the stadium when our team scores a goal. Without boundaries and rules there can be no play. I remember hearing of someone who drove past two schools one school had no fence, the children sat quietly in the middle of the playground. The second school had a fence; here in contrast the kids were running around, playing, climbing all over the fence, the boundary of the fence increased their ability to play creatively.

Even the seemingly most anarchic fields of creativity rules still matter. The abstract expressionists of the late forties and fifties changed art by dripping, throwing and flicking paint to create their masterpieces, yet they still operated within the rules by using paint, and canvases. The creativity that sprung from the punk rock movement was born out of self imposed set of rules. The Ramones freed 70’s rock from its bloated self indulgence by returning to four simple chords.

The key to all of this though is keeping the balance between adhering to the rules and pursuing creativity and innovation. The Christian movement which ditches the creeds and covenants in favor of total experimentation finds itself looking less and less Christian. The movement which favors creeds at the expense of innovation finds itself theologically correct yet culturally irrelevant. However movements which are able to find the perfect point of tension between creativity and creeds have the ability to become something truly special. It is this point of creative tensions which makes me so excited about being part of what God is doing through the Origins Project.

Mark Sayers is an author and speaker who specializes in interpreting popular culture from a Christian viewpoint.