Creativity V. Repetition Series

I’m not suggesting that one live life without planning…I’m aware that failing to plan is planning to fail. But I also realize that God is predictably unpredictable! God cannot be scripted or what he does in your life cannot be scripted, it has to simply be creatively accepted!

Brennan Manning says, “The new, the creative, the fresh is looked on with suspicion, not with fascination.”

John Henry Newman wrote, “To live is to change and to have lived well is to have changed often.”

Don’t get stuck!

Have you ever heard that phrase? “He’s stuck” or “They’re stuck”. It means they aren’t moving forward. Their creativity well has gone dry. They’re out of creative gas. They’re barely running on fumes. Before long they’ll be totally obsolete because they’ve failed to nurture the creative ability that God has placed in them.

We’ll be doing a 3 part Sunday morning series in coming weeks on

Vision + Creativity = Productivity

Let me hint at something tonight. Everything you do for God starts with a Vision. To accomplish that vision, you will have to be creative and this will result in productivity. The problem I believe that exists in many Christians today is that they don’t know how to nurture their creativity or productivity. They know what they want to do for God but they don’t know how to be creative or productive to accomplish that vision. I’ll have many things to say about this in the series so I’m not going give it up tonight….you’ll just have to make sure you’re here for the series!

New ideas, fresh ideas, creative ideas are what keep ministry relevant to our world. While I believe there are timeless foundations on which the Church should not move from, I also believe there are time stealing traditions that need to be cut loose. They need to make way for a new and better way.

God is always attempting to create in our lives. He doesn’t save us and then forget us. He doesn’t bring us out and the leave us out. God is actively engaged in bringing about His plan for our lives, for our families, for our church and our community. He calls on us to be creative in how that will be done. I love the fact that God thinks I can be creative enough to reach people for him.

As I near an end, I want to make a couple of observations.

Creativity will give clear direction and change our course.

Repetition will never direct and never change our course.

Sometimes in ministry we need a change of direction. We need to do it another way. We need to get creative in how we do what we do and understand why we do what we do.

Repetition will never ask the question, why am I doing it this way? What am I doing? Repetitious ministry is satisfied with the status quo. It doesn’t seek to change the rules or re-invent the process. If this was good enough 20 years ago, it’s good enough now. If it was good enough for Grandma and Grandpa, it’s good enough for me. It never leads you to a newer, deeper, more satisfying realization of who God is. It’s satisfied with yesteryear. Just keep repeating.

While I was working at the computer at home this week, my daughter Grace came up to me and said, “Hey Daddy, Pete and Repeat were in a boat and Pete fell in. Who was left?” We’ve all heard this before but Gracie is 7 so it’s pretty new to here so I played along.