Creativity/Opportunity

 Creativity/Opportunity

Sunday, September 26, 2021

I think creativity is over-rated. Don’t misunderstand. I am glad for people who are innovative and use their imagination. I just think “creativity” is a poor term. It claims far too much.

As we have seen in our summer series over the last two summers, God is the Creator, and thus creativity really belongs to Him. He speaks, and it happens. And what happens is something that comes from His mind alone. The concept. The raw materials. The design and function and intention. It all comes from Him. 

For mere mortals, some of whom are (wrongly) called “creatives,” they have an idea, but it is probably not entirely their own. They use materials and mediums that they borrow from others. They are re-arranging old furniture and re-framing past ideas in different combinations. It’s not wrong for them to do so. Just don’t call it creativity.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, Mark Sayers, to whom I referred last week, says that we also should re-frame not only our thinking in this time after the “pandemic pause,” but we should re-frame our creativity. But, since I don’t like his word, let’s say it this way: let’s re-frame our understanding of our opportunity. 

In our own setting, a lot of things are different than before the pandemic. Businesses are closed. Schools are in trouble. Our local church is smaller, and older. We are being tested by a saddening array of illness concerns in our congregation. Where is the opportunity? 

One of the opportunities that we’ve been compelled to discover is an increased attention to prayer. It’s not creativity on our part. God has a way of forcing us to our knees. Now I doubt that there are very many families moving to Milford who say they are searching for “a praying church.” But since we are not seeking to be market-driven, but rather, God-pleasing, is this an opportunity that God is pleased with, that we would devote ourselves to prayer? And so we try and stay connected and "on the same page” with “daily encouragement” emails that repeat and enumerate prayer requests, and now we meet on Wednesday evenings (as generations past have done) to pray for individuals and to pray for the church and for God’s mission in the world. 

Is this all? Is this the sum total of our opportunity? By no means. But it’s a good, God-pleasing start. 

Re-Framing

Re-Framing

For the past year and a half, I’ve been reading and listening to an Australian pastor, Mark Sayers. He has traveled and studied widely, and seems to have good understanding of our current cultural situation and also of the Bible. He has spent considerable time in the United States, and yet views it from the perspective of an outsider. He presented a series of talks of what we ought to “re-frame” in the wake of “ (or, midst of) the interruption of life and activity that we have experienced since March of 2020.

He suggested that we re-frame four things: our thinking; our creativity; our resilience; and our ministry models.Yes, he is addressing this to church leaders, but I think it has application for all of us, even as it applies to how we live our lives.

There have been things that have happened over the last months that were previously “un-thinkable.” The cessation of international travel and business trips. Schools being emptied. Prohibitions on seeing grandma at the retirement home. Or, a guy with horns on his head sitting in the speaker’s chair in the Capitol building. “Unthinkable” things happen all the time in individual lives, but we must know that God was and is not surprised by any of these things, and just because we find them hard to ponder does not mean that God is not involved, perhaps not causing these things, but using these things to shape our lives. So, we need to re-frame our thinking.

How do we do this? Well, we think the way we think because of what we listen to. That guy I mentioned (in our gathered worship) who told me I needed a drink (alcoholic), (he himself having had too much already) then went on to talk about people who had “sincerely held beliefs.” Well, where did he get his “sincerely held beliefs.” He got them from those to whom he listened. It can be family background, church, media, associates, etc. We are all that way. Don’t think you are different. But your “sincerely held beliefs” need to be fed by “sincerely sought-out sources” or information.

Leaked research from Facebook shows how they place information in front of your eyes based on what they think you want. It backs up what you already think. There’s nothing sincere about it. And Facebook is not alone. The whole marketing industry does this, and I believe that our news sources are no longer news sources but actually aggregators of attention, telling you what you already are disposed to agree with. So how does one re-frame one’s thinking in this kind of environment of information predators? 

If you don’t know what I’m going say next, then I haven’t been doing my job. 

Read your Bible. It’s not fast. It’s not easy. But over time, as you read and pause and think, your thinking will be re-framed by Someone who isn’t merely trying to glean data and increase market share. God isn’t like Facebook or major news outlets. He doesn’t need to be. He is our Maker, and as we have seen in Psalm 139, he already knows us inside and out, and He desires our growth into the image of His Son, able to resist being “children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;”(Ephesians 4:14 NAS95).

The Family Enterprise

 The Family Enterprise

Sunday, August 29, 2021

I talked with a gentleman recently who owns a small homebuilding business. He’s done it for years, and has the satisfaction of building many quality dwellings for people, of being his own boss, and working out-of-doors much of the time, and with his hands. But he’s 70 or so now, and everything is harder. He would like his son to take over the business, but the son’s bones and joints ache too, and he doesn’t want the headaches that go along with running a business. I’m not sure if my friend will be able to sell, or just close. It’s kind of sad.

This story is repeated over and over with family farms and businesses. The next generation doesn’t find the same joy in it as earlier generations did. Or, the corporate farms and big-box stores crowd out the market so that running a small operation is more difficult. Does this happen in the church as well?

Our Father in heaven is head of the family enterprise (grandly, and rightly called “the Kingdom of God”), and He is not about to retire. But, He has designed that His children should be involved in the family enterprise. They are to serve His interests, represent His mission, and glorify His name. They are to be active participants. But, like the son mentioned above, we can often find reasons or excuses for not taking part.

When it comes to this service, age or retirement is no excuse. You don’t need to climb tall ladders in God’s service. It’s much more the practical application of the fruit of the Spirit. Are you active in loving others? Are you spreading the joy the fills your heart? Are you an agent of peace, both in sharing how you have found peace with God, and making peace with others. Are you patient and gentle? Sure, there are practical applications that are difficult and demanding. Love goes along with sacrifice. Joy requires the discipline of not complaining. We have to say “no” to our flesh that we might live according to this Spirit who will help us be meaningfully and usefully involved in the family enterprise.

Pity the world that has no greater purpose in this world than accumulating more perishable items and once again trying to find something new in order to amuse oneself. But “pity” is not the right word to use of the one called to follow Christ, who shrugs off the family enterprise which was conceived before the foundation of the world were laid, and which will continue long after our sand castles are washed away.