Creativity & The Kingdom of God (pt. 3)

Creativity & the Artist

I want to consider the work of creativity and the artist first before we look at Christian and theologian. Colossians 3:16 states,

Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Now, why doesn’t it say, “Let the message be taught among you?”

The idea of “dwell richly” means to let something enter into and take complete residence in your heart and community. It means that the message of Jesus would fill every crack and crevice of our lives. 

When God communicated, he did not just teach, He dramatized with the prophets, He cooked up heavenly manna, He spoke in parables and other literary genres, He made the longest book a music book, He concluded the Law with two poems, He had Moses sing a song after He parted the Red Sea, He endowed the craftsmen with wisdom and visual art for the temple.

And ultimately, God’s fullest form of expression was sending Jesus as the embodiment of love itself. Of love, himself.

If you want to know or learn ANYTHING about God, look to Jesus. Jesus isn’t merely a message. He brings life to the message!

“Imagination Specialists”

God has gifted certain individuals as, what one theologian calls, “Imagination specialists.” According to Byron Spradlin, artists are particular individuals—imagination specialists—“who [are] unusually wise at imaginative design or expression.” He says that“Artists create environments for people to touch the transcendent realities.”

He’s getting this concept from Exodus 35:30-36:4 where we see the first people God gave the Spirit to: artists and craftsmen to design and construct the dwelling place of God:

Bezalel was 

• Filled with God’s Spirit: with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every kind of craft to design artistic works in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut gemstones for mounting, and to carve wood for work in every kind of artistic craft. 

Bezalel and Oholiab were

• Given the ability to teach others.

• Filled by God with skill to do all the work of a gem cutter; a designer; an embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen; and a weaver.

• They could do every kind of craft and design artistic designs.

Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the skilled people were

• Tasked to work based on everything the LORD has commanded. 

• The Lord gave them wisdom and understanding to know how to do all the work of constructing the sanctuary. 

What is amazing to me is that in our society today, artists are often poked fun at, considered socially awkward, and used for their gifts. Yet the church does not often asked for their insights. 

In this Exodus passage though, they are the ones God gave wisdom to. They have the ability to teach.

Often, prophets are on the margins of society. Consider the fact that John the Baptist was in the wilderness. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the others were cultural outcasts for calling Israel to turn back to the Lord. What is significant to me is how they leaned into the the realm of the imagination, of what C.S. Lewis called “the organ of meaning.”

Artists care deeply and have vision or outside-the-box ideas because they want to manifest something meaningful into the world. 

Notes

• Spradlin, Byron. 2023. “Byron Spradlin On Missions and the Role of Artists.” lausanne.org.

Creativity & The Kingdom of God (pt. 2)

The Root of Creativity

The history of this idea of “Creativity” is more of a recent thing.

Prior to the Enlightenment, the Western church was afraid to use it because “creating” had a kind of God-like status associated with it. 

But over these last few hundreds years in the West, an elite cultural status formed around the realm of the arts. 

Artists became a new social class—no longer just “craftsmen” with an artisan trade. I believe that the result of this new distinct artist role has done more harm than good. I made this idea of creativity messy for those who wouldn’t fit the idea of “artist.” Let me explain.

“Creative Expression"

If we consider the root of the words “creative expression” I think we see something interesting though:

“CREATIVE" — To bring into existence, cause something to come forth.

“EXPRESSION” — To make known, reveal.

To creatively expression then means, something like, to intentionally reveal something into existence. It is the taking of a think created in our minds and imaginations made manifest into real space and time. 

There are two struggles with this combination of words though. 

First, these two words seem to be almost saying the same thing, don’t they? 

Second, don’t we create + express all the time? 

Starting With Love

As a base line starting point, as this series is called “Creativity and the Kingdom,” we must consider whose kingdom we are talking about.

In God’s kingdom, the most basic ethic is love for God and neighbor (Mark 12:30-31). To follow Jesus is to love him with our entirety: our emotions, thoughts, and actions. And this is displayed, most purely, in how we treat others. 

Very simply, to be creative means to express love to God and neighbor. To help us understand a way forward, I think Japanese painter, Makoto Fujimura, has a helpful idea. 

The Three G’s

In his book, Culture Care, Fujimura outlines what he calls “generative thinking.” This is the effort we must all put into the expressions of our lives in three ways:

1. Genesis moments

2. Generosity

3. Generational thinking

By “Genesis moments,” he means those moments of need or failure (either in us or others). He says, “Creativity applied in a moment of weakness and vulnerability can turn failure into enduring conversation, open new visits of inspiration and incarnation” (3). What this means is there are multitudes of opportunities (“genesis moments”) every day which could open the door for us to be generous with our words and actions.

“Generosity” then is our responses to these genesis moments. While artists tend to have a keen sense of the worlds aches, this is something each and every one of us know well. Artists more often would prefer to create something as a response. They transmit their feelings into some sort of artistic communication (write a song, a poem, etc.). This is the intentional step for all of us to choose to be generous with these genesis moments rather than narcissistic. 

Fujimura’s third G then is “Generational Thinking.” By this, he means that to be generative in our thinking, we must think long term—beyond the moment. It did not take long for the curse in Genesis 3 to impact Adam and Eve’s next generation. Likewise, the numerous moments of blessings we show to others are what create a long-term culture of care. It is to ask of every action throughout the day: “what will this action or thought become in 200 years?”

Culture Care

Fujimura’s driving point is that our creative acts of love and service (whether we are artists or not) create what he calls, “Culture Care.” He says, “A well-nurtured culture becomes an environment in which people and creativity thrive” (7). 

So, how do we go about this in our lives? Fujimura’s final suggest is to fill in the blank to as many “What if _______?” Questions we can. Here are some of his examples:

• What if each of us endeavored to bring beauty into someone’s life today in some small way?

• What if we saw each moment as a genesis moment, and even saw the current problems we are facing as genesis opportunities?

• What if we considered our actions, decisions, and creative products in light of five hundreds years and multiple generations?

• What if we saw art as a gift, and not just as commodity?

• What if we became custodians of culture, willing to be demoted for standing up for what is right, but taking copious notes so we can challenge the status quo?

So, what are your What Ifs? 

Write them down. Share them with a friend. Make a plan to create!

Notes

• Fujirmura, Makoto. 2014. Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for our Common Life.

• Check out Rainbows for a Fallen World (Calvin Seerveld) for more related to the ideas in this post.

• Thanks to Byron Spradlin for some of these ideas as well!

Creativity & the Kingdom of God (pt. 1)

The Art Gallery & The Skeptic

A few years ago, I was at an art gallery with a group of friends who, let’s just say, weren’t all that interested in being there. 

One friend, who is not an artist, was looking at a painting with me. I could tell he was trying to ask respectful questions about it. While looking at the painting, he turned to me and said, “Matt, I have no idea what that’s about. Help me understand what it is.”

I sensed he felt out of place at the gallery, but I appreciated his curiosity and effort to engage with the artwork.

For many of us, engaging with the world of art and creativity feels like trying to understand a foreign language. However, creative expression is a much closer ally than we might think.

Though creativity is often associated with the arts, it’s not one of those "throwaway" values in the kingdom of God, as it sometimes is in other areas of life. It is not like in public schools where, when funds run low, the art departments are the first to get cut.

Yet, I think when we hear the words “creative expression,” something in our brains tends to shut off, thinking, “That’s not me, so let’s move on.”

What I hope to accomplish

I hope to convince you of two things in the next four blog posts:

First, that the idea of “creative expression” isn’t just something reserved for a category of people called “Artists.” Creativity is a gift God has equipped all of us to engage in.

Second, creativity actually helps to advance and expand the kingdom of God—both in our own hearts and in the communities we serve.

Be on the lookout for these four themes:

• What is Creativity

• Creativity as an Artist

• Creativity as a Christian

• Creativity and God

100% of the World is Oral

You may come across statistics highlighting the percentage of people worldwide who are oral-preference learners. I’ve seen anywhere from 70-80%.

While those numbers are interesting, I see it a little differently.

The reality is that 100% of us start as oral learners. By the time my daughter turned five, she had already been shaped by—and contributed to—the culture of our home and the relationships around her.

It’s only around 5 she began learning to read. 

Before age 5, she had already learned to make up her own songs, express herself, shape her evolving worldview, pick up values, interpret language, make connections, and yes, open a box of crayons, destroy a box of crayons.

For a 5 year old, literacy comes after so many other fundamental experiences. It is a, kind of, postscript for life. By then, life has already consisted of relationships, love, affection, laughter, learning complex skills, listening, and understanding that actions have consequences, with values and incentives learned through everyday experiences—an apprenticeship of life.

What if we embraced this natural, oral-preference tendency more as we seek to influence others, complementing it with more traditional forms of communication and knowledge?

Get rid of the “And”

Beware of what C.S. Lewis wrote into the demon, Screwtape’s, influence with what he called “Christianity And”:

“What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in a state of mind I call ‘Christianity And.’ You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christanity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitude for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.”

— Screwtape to Wormwood

Archippus Times

As I have been compiling a list of all the kinds of missionary helpers throughout the New Testament, I came across one obscure name at the end of Colossians 4. As Paul name-drops several people and does his usual end-of-letter closing, he tells the Colossians this:

“Tell Archippus, ‘Pay attention to the ministry you have received in the Lord, so that you can accomplish it.’”

— Paul, Colossians 4:17

What a random thing to say. The only other place Archippus is mentioned is in Philemon 2 where he is called “our fellow soldier.”

I was reflecting on the fact that we live in a kind of ARCHIPPUS-TIMES.

On one hand, you’ve got this guy, Archippus. It is clear that the Lord has an allotted space for him to be doing some kind of service in God’s kingdom. It is also unclear what he is dealing with that would hinder him from getting to this work. Is he being lazy? Is he unaware he’s got work to do? (that can’t be it). Has he run up against some sort of discouragement? Trial? Mid-life crisis? And why him of all the people in Colossae? Are all the other believers doing what God has asigned for their specific good works?

On the other hand, you have the work of the believers to nudge him toward remembering he’s got a specific responsibility for kingdom work. He’s got specific responsibility. God has transmitted some kind of work for him to do.

Sometimes, we need the encouragement to get to it. Other times, we need to nudge others.

What is our work?

I entited this that we live in Archippus times. Maybe we don’t even live in those times though. Perhaps we live in pre-Archippus times. It is easy to assume only leaders, those set-apart with degree in hand, have work to do for the kingdom. At least Archippus likely knew he had specific work to do. He just needed the car turned back on. How do you discover this kind of allotted work then?

Questions

One way to begin is by understanding yourself, your story, your angsts, your failures, your accomplishments, and what you enjoy doing that seems odd to others.

I’ve compiled a list of some of my most favorite questions to get you started.

New Section

I continue to add elements to my site here. Check out my new section “Make Sight.”

Comfort

You never know who you might be a comfort to.

Similarly, you never know who might show up as a comfort to you.

"But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus..." (2 Corinthians 7:6)