Lessons from The A Team.

I grew up watching the A Team. Not the new one. Not the one that came out in theaters last year. I mean the original, old school A Team. The one with Mr. T. It was an awesome show. Predictable? Absolutely. Great plots? Negatory. It was pretty much the same thing in every episode. But for a 6-year-old, it was the definition of awesomeness.

The best part in every episode was where the A Team would get captured by the bad guys. Inevitably they would be locked in a room with a bunch of tools, welding equipment, sheet metal and and old beater of a car (oh, and apparently guns, as well, since the A Team was always able to come out shooting). The A Team would then look at all of the stuff in the room and in a matter of a 30 second music and video montage, they would craft together a sweet armored vehicle, which would then be used as a means of escape. They were incredibly resourceful and also apparently quite gifted mechanics. Surely you've seen shows like this before. Maybe you've seen McGyver. The things that man could craft with some duct tape and papers clips was unbelievable.

The ability to make the most out of a given situation using only the things immediately available to you is one of the most important things for a creative individual to embrace. Shows like The A Team and McGyver remind me of the value of resourcefulness (if even in a cheesy way). Resourcefulness requires us to not only be purposeful in what we are creating, but stretches us in our creativity to work within our means.

There are certainly two sides to this discussion. Many would argue that their dreams and vision are too big for what they have available to them. And this certainly is a legitimate concern. But honestly, if you are dreaming and visioning, the reality is that you will always find that your dreams are bigger than your resources. It's the nature of dreaming. The responsibility of the artist is to figure out how to make that vision a reality, given our available resources. And most of us will never have everything that we want in order to see those visions completely fulfilled to their original form. Working within limitations causes us to think outside the box.

As a musician, there is much that I would like to do in my production. There are state of the tools that I would love to have at my disposal in order to produce my music. Would it sound better? In some ways yes. The overall production quality of the music would be much higher. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. So the question is, what do you do in the meantime? How do you create something great with very little? As artists we must force ourselves to be resourceful. To make the most of what we have. It forces us to use our creativity in ways that we might not normally use it. We must consider options and creative directions that we might not have considered otherwise. I believe that it makes us better artists.

Can a musician still produce a great song without all the bells and whistles that big budget records have? Yes. An artist right now that is very fresh in all of our minds is Bon Iver. Most are more familiar with his latest record, for which he just walked away with a Grammy award. But it's his first record that is really remarkable to me. For 'Emma, Forever Ago', was recorded in a cabin in the woods, basically on an SM57. Very, very basic. And yet it was voted to be one of the most influential records of the last decade. Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), is a great demonstration of resourcefulness. One of the cool byproducts of the home recording revolution is that it is forcing artists to be very experimental and resourceful with how they make their music. Some of the biggest artistic leaps and advancements are coming from the world of independent music and home/project recording.

There are also applications for churches, especially in worship and media ministries. Churches are one of the largest users and consumers of the latest technology. They dream big ideas and then convince everyone, including themselves that ministries will fail otherwise. And because most churches have large budgets for music and media ministries, many churches get the new toys and are never forced to consider if there are other ways to be artistic. And forget about ever considering whether or not the use of all the technology is actually artistic or tasteful at all.

I fully realize that technology is constantly evolving. It is not, in the words of Dennis Duffy, "cyclical", and churches will constantly find themselves in the position of having to reevaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of what they have. It is in many ways a necessary evil. But there is a difference in necessity and just going out and getting the newest and greatest things just because we can. Technology ≠ Art, at least in most cases. It is a tool, and nothing more. And in my humble personal opinion, I have seen very few examples of these new technologies used well.

There is also a spiritual side to resourcefulness. It is a close relative to sustainability. Working with and making the most of what we have been given. Operating within our means. Being a good steward. The idea of stewardship requires that we be resourceful. It requires that we think outside of the box in order to make the most of what we have and make it go further than it should. This is a very God honoring thing.

There is an inherent beauty in art that is born out the very struggle to see it realized. Are you a McGyver of an artist? Consider what this looks like for you as a creative individual.