- Creativity is being comfortable not knowing what comes next.
- Creativity is a posture of waiting on the Lord.
- When leaders fail to create a vision and frame the issues at hand in a lyrical, poetic way, a vision, the whole nation flounders.
- Without a vision, there is no leader.
- Without a vision the people perish.
- Without any poetic language to show people an alternative future, the people perish.
- Poetry is no trifling thing.
- Poetry sees the beauty in the ugly.
- Poetry sees Christ in the world.
- Poetry sees the possibility in pain.
- Poetry is what imagines a new kingdom coming.
- We need a new language for that.
- It’s a new kind of language.
- This generation is addicted to speed.
- We blur all of our moments into one holy smear.
- Poetry is the language that slows us down.
- Poetry is a lyrical language that causes us to see the beauty of this moment.
- Art is never about applause, it’s about an altar.
- Art is about a place to come and die.
- Poetry is out of the box.
- Why not create something that is unique even if you don’t know if anyone will read it?
- Maybe people will listen to prose married to new lyrical language because they are starved for words of imagination in a world of industry.
- “Science only gives us the notes of the poem. Christianity is the poem itself.”
- The Good News requires that we use a new language.
- The prophets were always the ones who spoke the words of poetry.
- Only the passion of poetry can convey the passion of Christ to a world that is in pain.
- Poets and prophets are the legislatures.
- The poets are the prophets cast lines and cast vision.
- The Hebrew word for prophet is complex.
- It’s not focused on what comes in the future.
- It’s derived from the word that means “to call, to announce”
- Prophets are the ones who are called by God to announce the Kingdom of God coming.
- Prophets are about turning people to God RIGHT NOW, not just casting a vision of the future.
- We are to turn the weary and the worn back to God.
- Artists create in response to God to call others to respond to God.
- Without vision, without poetry the people perish.
- What is it to see?
- How do you see and how do you make the blind see?
- We need to see.
- Faith is a way of seeing.
- Looking comes first.
- We may not deem ourselves creative or talented, but we can slow down, wake up, notice and learn how to see what the rest of the world is missing.
- We need to slow down and see the gifts… God in this moment.
- The gifts don’t matter, the giver does.
- We need to learn to give thanks in all things.
- The Lord is in this place.
- Slowing to see makes every moment a pool of grace.
- It’s the poets that know it and prophesy to the world.
- In Christ, time is never running out.
- We stand on the brink of eternity.
- There is no need for haste.
- Only amateurs hurry.
- Speak the language of doxology into a culture of despair.
- Speak the language of amazement in the world that feels abandoned by God.
- Speak the language of imagination – the image of God to the ache of this nation.
- A holy imagination makes the unseen, seen and makes the unheard, heard.
- Be a people of true imagination.
- Bring forth the image of God to the nations.
- We are called to be vocational imaginators.
- Imagination is the organ of meaning.
- We can only have a true imagination in proportion to the amount of time that we spend in God’s Word.
- Faith is always the way a soul gazes.
- Art is always an act of slowing down and attending.
- How are you taking time to slow down, gaze, and see?
- Creatives cultivate the habit of gratitude.
- All we do is a gift.
- Creativity isn’t something we mine from within; it’s bestowed from above.
- We don’t make wind, you wait for it.
- Show up every day and wait on the Lord.
- “No one can receive anything unless it’s given to him from Heaven…”
- Creativity is all a gift that’s not about you.
- It’s about God, grace and living in a posture bowed and waiting with a hand reached to Heaven.
- Take what you’ve been given.
- Give thanks for what doesn’t seem like enough.
- God will take it and make it more than enough.
- Gratitude for the gift always precedes the miracle of more God.
- Creatives cultivate the habit of giving glory.
- The whole earth is filled with His glory.
- The true call of all creatives is to enjoy God and to respond and express out of a joy in Him.
- Take what seems like waste and make something out of it.
- Live life, enjoy God, gaze, give things, enjoy Him and give
- All good art comes from the art of living well.
- Live out of your passions.
- What great and beautiful thing was created that wasn’t created out of passion?
- The ultimate creator is Jesus Christ.
- Is what you do all for Him?
- Poetry comes from your pain.
- Suffering is what will give you sight.
- Story is in the suffering.
- It’s the eye that sees the possibility of growth out of the suffering.
- Take it up in your life to live creatively.
- Spend your one creative life well.
- The art that you make will anoint the feet of Christ.
- Take your gift and make it a gift back to the Creator.
