BEYOND DESPERATE, SHE WAS FOUND BY HOPE Earlier today, I walked with my ten year old son Stephen through the National Gallery of Art here in Washington DC. I was amazed at Stephen's ability to feel the art, and to easily identify which pieces touched him and why. Both of us were mesmerized by a certain painting …
Calling All Creatives! Calling All Creatives! We Need You! While riding my mountain bike a few weeks ago, I took a tumble and shattered my collarbone into five pieces. A group of villagers carried me to my house, where I was helped into the passenger seat of my car. I asked someone, “Can you tell …
Continue reading ‘Onward Christian Artist, Going as to War’ »
Re-thinking Creativity and Ministry In the season when kings mounted swift stallions, unsheathed gilded swords and went to war, one king called in sick. Following a massage and a hot bath, he stretched himself across fluffy white, goose down pillows. His mind began to whimsically drift away from the fierce battles raging outside. His thoughts …
“This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” I John 3:16 For centuries, the people living in villages clustered along the south coast of Java have lived in terror of Nyai Loro Kidul, the …
I LOVE IT WHEN CHURCHES send short term workers here to Southeast Asia. It’s our chance to serve those in America who have sacrificed for us to be here. We are committed to giving the folks back home a life-changing glimpse of the world beyond America’s borders. Over the years, we’ve seen some Spirited teams, and one group stands out in recent memory.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN EMBARRASSED to hear yourself laughing exactly like a good friend laughs? Our voices often imitate someone we love and admire. This is because God has created us, his image bearers, to adopt the mannerisms of the objects of our worship. The Creator designed us to be worshiping beings. We simply can’t
Yesterday I read an article that inspired me to the core. Someone has invented a new kind of soccer ball. When the ball is kicked, it stores up energy within. The ball can be brought home and plugged in to an extension cord. Fifteen minutes of soccer stores up enough energy to light up a house for three hours. The ball has been designed to provide electricity for poor villages in developing countries.
Talk about creativity! My head is spinning with admiration.
We have a bit of that spirit around here. I really don’t mean to brag, but
By Guest Contributor Sharon Toews
What does it mean to experience “the renewal of your mind.” Typically I have thought of this in terms of purification or beginning to desire the things of God instead of the things of this world. I believe these are both common and valid interpretations, but I feel like I understood a fresh aspect of this verse today.
Our minds naturally function according to the rationality of this world and tangible reality. But we are exhorted: “Do not be conformed to this world,” or, as noted in my Bible as another possible translation, “to this age.” We are called not to be conformed to this world, this age, this blip of finiteness suspended amidst an unfathomable eternity beyond the confines of time and space and our feeble understanding of “reality.”
When we accept Christ, we are set free from previous worldly notions of what is possible, realistic, and logical. Indeed our whole being is being renewed and reoriented, and yet there is
Today is Sunday, my day of REST. So its time to have some fun and think about something unusual, out of my normal life pattern. Rarely do I get to listen to some of history’s greatest creative prodigies talk freely about the creative process. This interview with Bill Evans (1929-1980) is worth watching. He was a brilliant and innovative jazz pianist, and one of the most influential creative forces in the history of jazz. His insights into the creative process extend way beyond music. In this video he is talking about jazz technique, but I’m thinking about my life, relationships and work. Notice his persistent idea that the jazz innovation emerges from truth. Here, an artist talks about truth in the realm of music much in the same way that a theologian talks about truth in theology. To me that’s