Manifesto of Christian Creativity
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MANIFESTO OF
CREATIVE CHRISTIANITY
"In the beginning, God created..."
Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning, God
created…”
What
could be more God-like than joining Him in the very first action of God
recorded in scripture? Creativity!
Being
a Christian means being like God. The
purpose of the Christian life is to be transformed into the image of His Son.
We are saved by His grace and we grow through His indwelling presence. We desire to please Him in all things and we
live in obedience to His Word.
But
what do we run into when we get saved?
Almost immediately we meet those who claim that every Christian must be
identical. We are to look alike, think
alike, dress alike, walk alike, grow alike, vote alike and act alike.
And
that is being like God? Where did we
ever get that idea? God is the one whose
thoughts are not our thoughts, whose ways are not our ways, who doesn’t look
like us, who never ages, and to the best of our knowledge, never votes.
God
is a God of endless variety. He created
every person who ever lived with unique fingerprints and unique DNA. He doesn’t produce Christians who look like
little automatons dropping off an assembly line. In fact, He doesn’t have an assembly
line. Every Christian is hand-crafted. “We
are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10 NIV). Handiwork is not mass produced. God hand-designed each one of us for creative
Christianity.
Now,
before we go any further we need to get something straight. We are NOT God. When He created the heavens and the earth He
did it out of nothing. Ex Nihilo! God simply spoke into existence the universe
in which we live. We cannot do
that. Creativity for one of His
creatures instead involves taking what He has already created and fashioning
the material, emotional and intellectual worlds in which we live into new forms
to the praise of His glory.
A fascinating story from ancient history
illustrates the potential of creativity in everyone. .
Can
you imagine three Bill Gates in the same family? Three Thomas Edisons from one set of
parents? Three William Shakespeares who
are brothers? The three sons of Lamech
were three of the most enterprising sons ever to come from one set of parents
(see Genesis 4:16-26).
Little Jabel started out with just a few
sheep and cows like everyone else. But Jabel
raised the concept of shepherding to the level of managing herds too large for
the needs of a single family. He
expanded his enterprise until he had herds that could be slaughtered for
purchase by those who were just beginning to live in cities where they couldn’t
grow food and raise meat to eat for themselves.
Jabel’s creativity made him the father of Piggly Wiggly, Applebee’s and
McDonalds, inventing the concept of merchandizing agricultural products.
Young Jubal loved music. He used the God-given wisdom he possessed to
invent musical instruments, including strings and woodwinds. From this initial concept of string and wind
instruments came all of the variety of musical instruments we know today, from
the bassoon to the electric guitar. Jubal’s creativity made him the father of the U.S.
Air Force Band, the Boston Symphony orchestra and New Orleans jazz. Music is God’s gift to mankind, and He
allowed it to develop through the abilities He had given to Jubal. We still have echoes of his name in words
like jubilee and jubilation.
Tubal-Cain could care less about music
and food. He loved to work with his
hands. T-C advanced society through the invention of
tools made out of bronze and iron. He laid
the basis for all manufacturing by inventing tools which could hammer and cut
and sharpen. Tubal-Cain’s creativity made him the father of Neuschwanstein Castle
and Notre Dame Cathedral, the Stanley Steamer and the BMW, the John Deere
tractor and the Apple computer. The
concepts Tubal-Cain originated have come down to us in the form of everything
from cooking utensils to modern skyscrapers.
These three sons advanced the progress
of civilization by light-years. God
desires that His people contribute to the development of the society in which
they live. He wants us to use our
ability to think, our ability to feel, our ability to investigate possible
solutions for the good of mankind. He
designed us to be creative Christians.
So how does creativity work? I am convinced that it should be the ultimate
goal of growth in Christ. When we accept
the salvation offered freely to us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross,
we begin to understand and treasure Almighty God. The indwelling Holy Spirit starts to
transform us into the image of Christ through the application of His Word in
our lives. As a result of that
transformation we learn what it means to serve God by serving others, to the
praise of His glory. That service to
others takes the form of a creative development of all that God gifts to us as
His unique handiwork. Creativity will
not look the same for every Christian.
Instead every talent and ability we possess will be used by God in a way
which is different from every other person in the entire world.
For far too long we have lived with the
idea that the only people who are really serving God are preachers, teachers
and missionaries. We have limited
Christian service to the four walls of the church rather than seeing the entire
world as a place of creative Christianity.
We have surrendered to Satan huge areas of a world which actually
belongs to God. The Evil one does not
deserve dominion over business or entertainment or education or politics or
film or sports or media. Creative
Christianity should be actively redeeming those fields for the glory of God.
Looking like Christ has nothing to do with
height, weight, hair color, shoe size or age.
God is Spirit, so being made in the image of God must involve
characteristics which relate to something other than material likeness. We are made in His likeness (Genesis 1:27)
and are like Him because we possess intellect, emotions and a will. Becoming a creative Christian doesn’t mean
changing our hair color or wearing a certain style of clothing. Creative Christianity means using our minds,
emotions and conscious choices to produce innovations which will bring glory to
Him.
God made Adam and Eve
in His own image, with creative minds, an intellect which they passed down to
their descendants. He created a human
race, capable of composing symphonies and creating computer software and rocketing
into outer space.
God created the first
couple as moral beings with a conscience and a will able to choose what was
good and righteous. They had the ability
to communicate, to talk with God. They
were fully capable of responding to the standards of a holy God, a quality lost
in the fall, but restored through faith in Christ.
Our original parents
also possessed emotional capacity. This ability
to love, just like intellect and emotion, was patterned after God Himself. The two of them, in contrast to all the animal
kingdom, had prescient, eternal souls, emotional competency, and God-conscious
minds.
Christian creativity
encompasses all that it means to be made in the image of God. God has called us, Christ has redeemed us and
the Holy Spirit indwells us in order to transform us into that original image
lost in the fall.
Creative
intellect engages our minds in a constant endeavor, that of discovering the potential of the raw
materials God has placed in our environment and inventing innovative systems
for the betterment of the human race.
Those raw materials include not only the elements, but also language and
math, medicine and logic, literature and philosophy.
Creative
emotion necessitates interaction with God and our fellow
man. Learning to treasure God, we
internalize all of those qualities which find their perfection in Him. As the Holy Spirit transforms us we direct
our effort toward utilizing those Godly emotions in service to others. We dedicate ourselves to demonstrating God’s
love and the fruit of the Spirit and the compassion of Christ to the benefit of
all mankind.
Creative
will
evokes a life settled on total obedience to His purposes. But His purpose for each one is unique, so
doing the will of God will look different in every Christian. We can and should be creatively obedient. To that end we study, understand, apply and
actively participate in every truth found in the Word of God—which is truth!
Don’t allow yourself to
sink into the morass of conventional Christianity, plodding hip-deep through
muddy tradition while trying desperately to measure up to the expectations of
others.
Dare
to walk on Water! Determine today to
become a creative Christian.
Feel free to share this
article with others.
I appreciate hearing from you. Contact me with
your thoughts at:
or
Robert Allen
The
Bible Story Family
P.O Box 28342
Minneapolis, MN 55428-3351
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