My heart's desire is to
inspire you to more fully embrace a communicable attribute of God: His Creativity.
Creativity is a part of his nature that he has put in all of you to varying degrees.
I know
that embracing creativity will draw you closer in your relationship with the Creator.
I
know it will make you far more interesting and well rounded.
Since you are or
will be leaders in your churches, and because you love him, you desire to be
witnesses to the world of the hope we have in Jesus. I want to inspire you, the students in the SBC’s Student Missionary
Fellowship (and the readers of this article!) to be free to explore the fullness of God’s creativity in your experience of Christianity.
Q: What's holds us back?
Much of what we practice in our
faith as evangelical believers comes from a cognitive approach to faith.
Those who are wired, or drawn toward knowing God primarily through the study of and preaching of God's word are also the ones who are drawn toward vocational ministry or teaching in our churches. They teach out of their blessed experience that this THE WAY to know and walk with God. Much of our New Testament and theology was penned by the strong role model we have in the left-brain scholar/leader the Apostle Paul. Because of this we almost exclusively taught and use what some have called our left brain as we approach and experience him.
This group here today are Bible School students, so I would presume to guess that many of you are very comfortable with this cognitive approach to our Christianity. You experience God and hear him profoundly as you read and study the Word of God, or listen to a sermon or lecture.
Yet, after
seeing that video (in the previous post), you are reminded of God's incredible diversity and beauty in creation.
In light of this, I want to
suggest that God has blessed those he created in his image with a diversity of
ways we can experience Him, draw near Him, hear from him and share his good news with others.
Q: What do you mean by a diversity of approaches?
It may come as a surprise to some of you that there are those who feel more close to him as you walk in the Botanic Gardens,
or care for those who suffer,
or through disciplines of solitude, simplicity, fasting
or on your own sitting in his
presence and adoring him.
You might think of traditions as dry and meaningless,
but there are many who love ritual and
tradition because they know God better in and through them. In them, we identify with countless believers through the ages as we follow a church
calendar/liturgy or certain rituals.
Did you know that God created
some of us wired to best experience life and God himself through our senses and beauty? This type of wiring isn’t celebrated or even
acknowledged in many of our churches. Our senses? The word sensual has negative connotations, and we rarely hear sermons from Song of Songs or Ecclessiates, or the laments in Psalms. We don't look to John the Baptist as a role model. God wired some of his children to approach him best through their sense and beauty, and these, by and large are the Artists among us. The ones who seem a little too “out there.” Quite frankly, they seem a little wild and dangerous! Quite a bit like some of the wildlife we saw in that video of God's creation!
Q: What is the positive and negative impact in a church where
creative believers are released to explore the arts in the mission of the
church?
You can be sure that any
creatively wired people here are resonating with what I’ve been talking about.
You’re glad that the organisers have chosen this topic for
today!
So, let’s just start with the positive impact of TODAY: Merely bringing it up gives a group of people here a
fresh affirmation that God did indeed make you artistic and creative and he
loves you for it. It give you hope. From my lifetime experience in the
evangelical church, I know many of creative believers are withering in our
churches.
There are also some negatives: Those who don’t yet know Jesus
who are wired this way will not be drawn to him when the appealing, radical, creative
part of his nature is hidden in our worship and expression of faith.
BUT, I know why you resist. I admit it. Artists are...
- messy
- moody
- misunderstood
- easily offended
- can seem undisciplined
- love spontaneity and improvisation (when the other need a PLAN)
- they are not likely to be grounded in their discipleship or the Word.
And so the more logical lovers of order and protocols who lead the church keep these people leashed, or even worse, try to change them into their image. (Well, I have to admit, changing some of those things on this list is a very good idea! I'm glad Rory Noland wrote his books for artists on Christian Character Formation, The Heart of the Artist, and Thriving as an Artist.
The biggest negative of all is: If we’re not engaging and empowering and sharing what that extra dose of creativity God has put in the Artists among us, we are sadly experiencing, worshipping, and sharing only part of what he is.
Q: Many feel that arts are only for professionals and rarely experience
creativity and stand on the sidelines. What are ways that non-professionals can
be engaged and drawn in to join on the mission of God?
Ok. Imagine I’m 6
years old and I’ve just learned to make a paper airplane with my other 6 year
old friends and we have fun flying them and seeing how far they will go. I’m
excited to show it to my dad. I’ve enjoyed learning how to make it, see how
well it flies…and I want to give it to him. Now, my dad works for NASA and is a
pilot for Space Shuttles. He’s flown rockets and has a doctorate in Aerospace
Engineering. This little airplane is silly compared to what he knows and can
do. But how do you think my father will respond to receiving this gift?
Do you see the allegory?
Let's face it. Even professional art isn't much better than a paper airplane compared to the ART we saw in that "Wonderful World" video!
I can BET you’ve had a lifetime of being
hammered into believing that art has no value unless it is professional,
excellent art (however one might define excellent!).
That is rubbish and a lie
from the pit of hell where the Deceiver has convinced so many hearts and minds to not even try. Perhaps even the majority of hearts and minds.
God wants us to enjoy creativity, just because it is
enjoyable to create.
There is value in the process. Engaging, practicing the
arts is a way we can share in a part of what makes us different from the other
animals and made in His image.
I would guess that many of your
background in engaging the arts was taking years of piano or violin lessons
that came with exams on how you must play the correct way. Or maybe you were
more than once embarrassed by what a teacher or a peer said about an art
project you made in primary school. No. Stop it. Not everyone is going to be a
professional, but that doesn’t mean you can get great joy from exploring and
dabbling, and using that right half of your brain which God also made and
called “good”.
So what if you are an amateur?
Go
ahead. Make your own greeting cards, carry around a sketch book, learn how to
decorate cakes, take a guitar class, or a singing class, or learn flamenco
dancing, respond to something that has moved you with writing a poem about it.
You will be more spiritually whole when you do.
