Why Fight for Creativity?

You were born to create. I know because my bible said so. It doesn’t matter what your primary school art teacher told you, it doesn’t matter what your friends and family tell you and it doesn’t matter what you tell yourself when you sit down to put pen to paper, and your mind feels completely devoid of any original, creative thought. God said it, so it’s true.

You are made in the image of a creative God (see Genesis 1:26). Now, let’s talk about why your limitless creativity matters…

In the second chapter of Genesis, we see the moments after God created Adam. These are humanity’s first steps! What will Adam do? Will he begin to pray or prophesy? Will he preach to the creatures God has made? Maybe he’ll start serving tea of coffee, or apply for a secretarial position.

All those things are good, but that’s not what Adam did first.

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man[a] to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.” (Genesis 2:18-20)

The first act of mankind was to begin to co-create with God! That was the beginning of our love story with the Father: we created together!

If you look at the world around you, you’ll find that every living creature that God made has adapted to its environment, except one. Mankind has adapted our environment to suit us, just as God instructed (see Genesis 1:28). The great dream of God that Jesus prayed, that the Earth itself would look like Heaven (Matthew 6:10), is answered as a church rises up to shape the world around her into the picture God first envisioned, in the very beginning, when He hovered over the waters.

But, as you look around you, you may also notice that mankind doesn’t spend most of its time creating. What happened to us? Where did we depart from our original mission?

“And to the man he said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
    whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
    All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
    though you will eat of its grains.
By the sweat of your brow
    will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
    from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
    and to dust you will return.”
(Genesis 3:17-19)

In Genesis 3 there’s a twist in mankind’s story. We chose to obey the serpent, a father of lies, instead of a Father who painted the skies for us. We chose to take, instead of create.

The consequences of our own actions was a deviation from our original purpose: instead of subdue and shape our world we were cursed to wrestle with it and take our living from it.

Here’s the good news friends: Jesus has freed us from every curse! This perversion of our purpose was nailed to the cross the day that we were crucified with Christ (see Ephesians 2).

With the five-fold ministry God has given us, comes a renewed call to create:

“Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.“ (Ephesians 4:12).

Your hands, your words, and your lives are needed. The church is called to emerge in this time, at the pointy end of history, to shape our world and build God’s kingdom on the earth. It’s time to return to who we were created to be: to co-create with God.

Are you ready?