christian living on Creativity

Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having th...

Technology is a brilliant, praiseworthy expression of human creativity and cultivation of the world. But it is at best neutral in actually forming human beings who can create and cultivate as we were ...

Children—and then adults—with a firm foundation of joy also have the capacity to make positive contributions in the world. It starts with play and exploration. When a child has a firm foundation of jo...

Children, in particular, are driven to create—if we just nudge them in that direction. They thrive in a world stocked with raw materials. But too often, and with the best of intentions, we fill their ...

Why do my best ideas come to me in the shower? I feel like my IQ is at least twenty points higher while lathering up than at any other time of the day. And I’m not alone in finding my light bulb momen...

Stewardship means to consciously take up our cultural power, investing it intentionally among the seemingly powerless, putting our power at their disposal to enable them to cultivate and create.

In a study at UC Berkeley conducted by Adrianna Jenkins and Ming Hsu, it was discovered imagination may be the pathway needed to uncover patience. The study found when we imagine possible outcomes, it...

What you do in the present by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neig...

We know God not just in our conscious awareness and in prayer, but also in a deep inchoate way, by participating with Him in building this world – by growing things, building things, carving things, c...

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

Liu Chi Kung, who placed second to Van Cliburn in the 1948 Tchaikovsky competition, was imprisoned a year later during the Cultural Revolution in China. During the entire seven years he was held, he w...

While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...

At one point in his life, the famous modern artist Pablo Picasso was robbed in his French home. He told the police he would be happy to paint them a picture of the robbers. “And on the strength of tha...

The Master & His Workshop I remember first walking into my friend Andrew’s new workshop, housed in a colonial-style barn and situated on an expansive wooded acreage on the Eastern Seaboard. Thin...

Pastors work hard and those outside of ministry (and maybe within) may miss that it is labor , a job , their share in Adam's gift of work. We're excited to share this devotion from Kara M...

There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...

God of Grace–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are good and You are almighty. You alone are worthy of our faith and trust and so we come to You with our hopes and hurts, our disappointments and dreams...

Lord: In our times of weakness and our hours of need, Yours is the strength that enables us to carry on, Yours the shoulder we rest our heads upon. When our load is heavy and too much to bear, Yours a...

God of the Impossible – Father, Son and Holy Spirit: There’s nothing too hard for you to do, Nothing too complex for You to understand, No place we go that You’re not there, No sin too heinous tha...

God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...

God—our Father ... our Savior ... our Counselor and Friend: Thank you for daring to meet us at the most unlikely places, and in the most unexpected times of our lives. Thank you for redeeming our pain...

As August wraps up and Labor Day is right around the corner, your congregation is gearing up to go back to school for the 2023-2024 academic year! With it comes excitement and plenty of anxiety about ...

For some people the brokenness in these foundational relationships results in material poverty, that is their not having sufficient money to provide for the basic physical needs of themselves and thei...

When I was considering the possibility of embracing Christian faith as a young college student, what I feared most was that it would make my life smaller rather than larger—less love, less joy, less c...

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

We were created for goodness and perfection. That’s why we innovate, progress, and change. But if our progress loses its purpose, it cannibalizes our humanity, leaving us distracted and disoriented.

Genius is in the idea. Impact, however, comes from action.

When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon...

“You need a certain dose of inspiration, a ray from on high, that is not in ourselves, in order to do beautiful things.”

Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech.