Genesis Touch

I'm currently reading a book by Barbara Brown Taylor called Always a Guest.  It's a book sermons she has delivered in various places across the country as a guest preacher.  So far, and I'm on chapter 4, it's wonderful - but I expected that to be the case. 

In a sermon called Errors about Beauty, she writes (or preaches):

The Creator made us to co-create, and there is little that gives us as much pleasure as making beautiful things; not just painting, poems, sculptures, and symphonies, but also gardens, cakes, perfect designs in new-mown grass, and babies  When we put something beautiful into the world, it is Genesis all over again  We are engaged in divine work.

We are created to co-create?  Who is or are our co-creators?  First, I think God.  Made in God's image, we are granted creativity.  We are creative in concert with God - and I like that word, because it can feel like dancing and music. When you pray, you step into the dance, asking God to allow you to join in the creative force - asking God to join you in the creative force.  And, together, you create love, healing, comfort, justice, beauty, and an abundance of other wonderful aspects of God's kingdom.

Who else is your co-creator?  I believe the people God would call your neighbors.  You create with other people.  We are the church, and together, we can work to change the world.  It is the creative kingdom work that God has called us to do.

What is God calling you to do with God today? What is God calling you to do with someone else today? What creations await your genesis touch? What divine work is left undone that needs your God-given creativity?

 

Perspectives: Creativity

Perspectives: Creativity

Yesterday, I wrote about the need to use creativity in your ministry of Finance in a church. My thoughts around that started with this image. 

This is creativity. It is seeing the unexpected in something ordinary - a bicycle and spare parts for something (I'm not sure what). 

I remember, years ago, when I was in elementary school, as part of a test, I was given a green oval. The task was to draw something creative around it. How do you take a green oval and be creative with it? How do you take something that ordinary (and of such an ugly shade of neon green) and create something unexpected. Green, on that day, to me, said alien. And what would be unexpected about an alien? Standing on his head. So I drew an alien standing on his head. I have no idea if the person grading the test could tell that's what it was, but that's what I did.

The only way to be creative is to be creative. Have I said that before in another post? Don't be stopped by the idea that you are not. Just do it.

What is Creativity?

What is creativity? The internet says, "the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.  synonyms include inventiveness, imagination, innovation, originality, individuality."

But I don't always agree with the internet.

What is creativity? There is no doubt that creating something original, something innovative requires creativity,  but I don't think these alone define it.  

In a comment a couple of days ago, Birdwatcher (great to see you at Conference!) said, "I struggle with the label "creative" - when I take a pattern for the leg of a sock, and move it around (make it twice, or put one design on the top of the foot) I don't think of it as creating - more like adapting someone else's creation for the individual who will receive the sock. Maybe in Creation, God took a basic pattern and adapted it to different needs/locations?"

I think this is a common thought - many of us feel this way. I knit and make cards, and I struggle with the idea that if I follow a pattern or am heavily inspired by the work of someone else, I'm not really being creative. When I knit a sock, I am not (ever) making something that someone has not made before, and has not written out instructions for me to follow, so that I can make a sock just like the one that was made previously. BUT, I am taking lightweight yarn and five double-ended sticks, and when I am finished, there is a sock. It is something that didn't exist before. When I'm creating it, I have the reassurance that someone has done the engineering for me, but still, when I'm finished, I have a sock that I created. It didn't exist before, and now it does. (And it sits there, impatiently waiting for me to knit a mate).

It takes creativity to believe that tiny yarn and sharp sticks can become something else.

Unlike a sock, I can design a card from scratch. I can create in my imagination the image of a card that I've never seen anywhere else before. And I can create it from my imagination. I can also look at a card that someone else has created, and use my imagination to recreate it, using the tools I have and the inspiration from someone else's work. In the end, paper and ink has become something that didn't exist before on my desk - a card to send to brighten someone's day. 

It takes creativity to believe that I can turn ink and paper into a card, and it takes creativity to believe that my work in making the card, and sending it to someone else will brighten her day and provide him with encouragement.

I can see a need in my church for ministry with children, and I can research vacation Bible school programs, purchase one, recruit volunteers, and implement the program, exactly as it is written, and I am still being creative. It takes creativity to imagine that a need can be met. It takes creativity to adapt the program to our own particular setting (because, even though I said exactly as it is written - it's never that way). It takes creativity to imagine that we can change the lives of children through the work we do as a church. 

Birdwatcher is right - God took a basic pattern and adapted it to different needs and locations, and God is still doing that, every day. And no one would dare to say that God is not creative.

Creativity

Creativity is just connecting things.  (Steve Jobs)

I read that today. What do you think about it?

I've heard so many people say, "I am not creative." I wonder if re-imagining what creativity IS would help people to believe that they can be creative.

Suppose your church is holding a vacation Bible school. And it sees a need to reach out to the community. Could there be a way to connect the two? That would be creative.

I preached a couple of Sundays ago at a retirement community. Whenever I do that, I struggle to find a way to connect the message of the lectionary reading to those who will be listening. It's a struggle that finds its solution in creativity.

Creativity doesn't always mean writing a story or drawing a picture (as we are trained to believe in school). Creativity is so much more. You are created in the image of God, the most creative entity ever. You were born to create. What will you create today?  

Living out of our Imagination

The sad truth is that most people spend more time planning their summer vacation than they do planning the rest of their life.  That’s poor stewardship of right-brain imagination.  Goal setting is good stewardship.  Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen.  Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design.  Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.  -- Mark Batterson in The Circle Maker

I am a nerd.  I joyfully accept the label.  I love to play with computers, I am a Star Trek fan, I alphabetize my spice rack (who doesn't?), and I make lists.

I am creative and imaginative.  I accept that label with trepidation, although I believe it to be true, and believe that my creativity is a gift from God.

Each morning, I make a list of what I need to accomplish that day.  Each Monday, I make a list of what I would like to accomplish that week.  Each month, I have a list of goals.  If, at the end of the day, or of the week, or of the month, I haven't check off my lists, life goes on.  I don't see my lists as a trap, but as a way to keep my mind organized.  I like it, although I do understand that my system would never work for everyone.

I have been asked to be the Media/Tech person for an upcoming Women's Walk to Emmaus.  I've never done that before, but I'm looking forward to it.  I was sitting in Panera a few days ago (it was a day off), and I was enjoying my morning, making lists and worksheets to prepare for the first team meeting.  A friend walked up and asked what I was doing.  "Organizing my brain for the upcoming walk."

Out of this intentionality (an offshoot of my nerdiness) will spring creativity.   It will prepare me to spontaneously respond to crises and issues as they arise.

Do we approach church life with this same intention?  Do we take this kind of time to plan ministry?  Do we live in the past, doing what we have done before, living out of memory, or do we set goals so that we can live out of imagination?