Do your students love Halloween as much as mine do? 🎃

Every week they come to lessons so excited to tell me about their costume plans and the decorations in their classroom or at home.

Several years ago, I started introducing Halloween and fall-themed music and lesson activities during the months of October and November and it has been a big hit.

I choose games and activities for my beginning and elementary students to do throughout the month (or to use in our October studio classes) and I often choose a special piece of sheet music (or a piece to teach by rote) that ties in with the season.

The arts - whether it's music or dance or drama or visual - are a wonderful way to enhance the worship experience, engage the congregation, bring stories to life in new ways, and create meaningful, memorable experiences for all involved.

Related post: Integrating Visual Arts in Worship

The term "worship arts" means different things at different churches, but often times, it includes things like:

• altar decorations
• paraments
• banners (including ribbon and streamers)
• visual aids for worship
• flower arrangements, wreathes, and other decorations
• visual art
• audio and visual technology
• dance
• drama

There's been an effort at my current church to incorporate more of these things into our worship services on a regular basis, so last year, I started a worship arts team.

Creativity is one of those elusive things that’s hard to wrap your mind around sometimes. What is it? Does everyone have it? Can it be developed?

One of the big things I’ve learned about creativity over the past few years is that, more than anything else, creativity is a way of thinking. It’s a way of looking at the world, interacting with it, challenging it; studying things, testing things, and a relentless desire to explore new territory.

Some people naturally tend to think this way, but that doesn’t mean creativity is limited to certain individuals. Creative thinking is a strategy; it’s a skill that can be developed.

Let’s delve into theory for just a minute:

Creative thinking (in any context) has four main components: Flexibility, Fluency, Originality, and Elaboration (source).

There’s no denying it: We live in a visual age.

Statistics show that only 10% of people remember things they hear and only 20% remember things they read. But, a remarkable 80% of people remember things they see and do. (source)

Visuals play a huge role in how we learn and process information. Did you know that our eyes process visuals 60,000x faster than text? (source). Understanding the power of visuals and the role they play in our everyday lives is crucial to planning and creating meaningful, engaging worship services.

”The visual arts used in worship bring the gospel to life.” (source)

Modern worship is informed by a rich heritage, a collection of sacred symbols and icons, and tangible things like bread and wine. How can we integrate visuals into our worship services on a more regular basis? How can we depict the story of the gospel through art and media? How can we enhance the spoken Word, the prayers, the rituals, the music with visual art forms?

There are lots of ways to add musical creativity into worship:

hymn harmonizations
transpositions for the last verse
a trumpet obbligato for "Now Thank We All Our God" 
traveling music as the choir moves into place
a soprano descant (that your sopranos can sing) for "O Come, All Ye Faithful" 
newly-composed parts for the praise band

But every week? Who has time for that?!

There's one thing I’ve been challenging myself to do every Sunday since July. It’s helped me grow as a musician and proved meaningful for congregation members. And now, it’s something I look forward to as part of my planning and preparation for Sunday each week. It is:

Creating transitions from the offertory to the doxology. 

"To stimulate creativity, one must develop the child-like inclination for play.”- Albert Einstein

As a piano teacher, I love teaching young beginning students. I love their enthusiasm, the questions they ask, their excitement over little successes, and most of all, their creativity.

Young children are naturally curious and inquisitive, with vivid imaginations. I love finding ways to bring that into our piano lessons and their practicing at home. I added a "Creativity Challenge" to the bottom of my assignment sheets a few years ago (available as a free printable here) and each week, I write a short prompt to encourage creative exploration, discovery, and music-making during the week.

I love working with five-year-olds. I love their creativity, their fearlessness, their willingness to try new things, their crazy imaginations, and the way they make everything silly and fun. Five just might be my favorite age.

Some suggest that thinking like a five-year-old is beneficial for creativity, leadership skills, and growing a business (source). After all, five-year-olds are about as creative as they come (try asking one to explain why the sky is blue). Next time you need a fresh spark of creativity or you want to see the world from a new perspective, channel your inner five-year-old. Here's how:

Ask questions. Have you been around a five-year-old lately? They ask lots of questions. Want to challenge the status quo? Ask more questions. Want to understand the heart behind that decision? Ask more questions. Want to create something unique and innovative? Ask more, well, you know.

Have you ever needed an instrumental piece for worship at the last minute? If you've found yourself in this situation, then you know it can be complicated and time consuming to track down a piece that will work. Because, after all, you're not just looking for any piece of music; you're looking for something that fits the theme of the day, is the right length, is in the right key, is manageable enough to put together the morning of, and is easily accessible (i.e. downloadable or something you already own).

As someone who's been in this situation many times, I've come up with a quick and easy solution: creating instrumental arrangements from music I already have (choral octavos, solo piano music, hymn harmonizations, vocal collections, etc.). 

As a young piano student, I had a teacher that assigned Valentine composition projects. 

The task was to create a song with words for a friend or family member, notate it in lessons with her guidance, and perform the musical valentine for the person you chose. I remember sitting at the piano in our living room, playing with patterns and ideas until something stuck.

Here is a little sample: