Ministry requires creativity. Whether using puppets, object lessons or story-telling, engaging your audience is key to getting your message to be memorable and affecting.
As I read history, I find there are certain qualities in all creative people.
- C – Curious
- R – Risk Taker
- E – Enthusiastic
- A – Active
- T – Tenacious
- I – Inventive
- V – Visionary
- E – Energetic
Table of Contents
Curious – Creative people are naturally curious people. They need to know what is in that box. They want to know how things work.
I read a book a few years ago on dog-sledding. I thought it might be a great hobby. After I read it, I realized it would be expensive and time consuming and not nearly as nifty as it sounds. But I was curious.
My librarian is often amazed at the wide selection of books I order in through the inter-library lending system. I get books from libraries all over the state on a myriad of topics.
Curiosity is often the beginning of creativity. When you begin asking questions like “What is that?” What does this do?” “How does it work?” and “Why do we…?” you are on the way to a creative answer.
Children know instinctively to ask these questions. Fran Lebowitz expressed it like this: “Children ask better questions than adults. ‘May I have a cookie?’ ‘Why is the sky blue?’ and ‘What does a cow say?’ are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than ‘Where’s your manuscript?’ ‘Why haven’t you called?’ and “Who’s your lawyer?”
It is by becoming childlike that you can recapture the creativity that isn’t afraid of obvious questions.
Risk Taker – Creative people are inherently risk takers. We think outside the box. We try things that may cause us to be ridiculed.
” We are told people don’t like change. But actually, people love change if it brings hope of something better,” Mike Vance, Think Out of Of The Box
Taking risks means daring to try new approaches or ideas with no predictable control over results or consequences. In other words, taking action when the outcome is unknown. Back when I managed other people’s businesses, I often made changes to how things were done at work without permission.
When the ideas were good, the boss would always compliment me, but also tell me I should have asked first. The thing is, if I asked first, the answer would have been no. Large companies fight change. When the idea was bad, I usually covered it up and no one ever knew.
Being creative, I took chances with my career. It made me very successful but not promotable. Companies promote followers, not the creators. We tend to rock the boat.
Enthusiastic – Creative people are enthusiastic. They are always thinking, looking for new ideas and quick to share them.
I am always bouncing ideas off my wife. Some good, some crazy. She lets me know which are which, too. I need deadlines, or I won’t get anything done. I get an idea, I run with it with childlike abandon. Then, I get another idea and I am off in another direction.
It’s the enthusiasm that keeps me going. The deadlines though make me sort through ideas, develop them and produce finished results.
Active – Creative people are active people. They are not watching television for long periods of time. They are working. A creative mind must be doing something.
In the same way, if you want to be more creative, be more active. Mess around with your arts and craft supplies, read a book on a new subject, take a class and see the creative juices start to flow. Try out your ideas. As they fail, you will learn what doesn’t work and get new ideas to make them successful.
Activity is key to creativity.
” The human race is divided into two classes. Those that go ahead and do something and those who sit and ask, ‘why wasn’t it done the other way?'” Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Tenacious – Creative people are tenacious. They will not quit until they achieve their goal
My weakness seems to be that I can flit from one project to another, leaving many things undone. On the other hand, when something needs to be done, when there is no other choice, I stick to it.
A few summers ago, I decided to cut down a tree that was too close to the house. A big tree. I thought it was leaning away from the house, but au contraire. When I had cut almost through the trunk, the tree started leaning towards the house.
In an almost comedic chain of events, I went about getting that tree down. I bought a come-along (a winch) to pull the tree away from the house and down. The hardware man picked out a nice length of polyester rope he said would work. Unfortunately, the rope had so much stretch in it, the winch ran out of tightening cable before I could apply enough force to bring the tree down.
Plan two, I tied the rope to the ball hitch of my pickup truck to pull the tree down. As I gunned the truck, the rope met maximum stretch, then like a slingshot, snapped back, swinging the back of my truck into a small shed. With the shed destroyed and a dented fender, I moved onto plan three.
I attached the come-along to the ball hitch of the truck with a lock and chain. As I winched in the rope, instead of the tree coming down, the truck slid backwards.
Plan four was next. With the come-along still attached to the truck, I tightened the rope then, I started the truck to pull down the tree. With the slack already removed, the truck would not slingshot this time. The chain broke, the come-along went flying. It ended up twisted and bent from hitting the ground.
In less than an hour, I had destroyed my lawnmower shed, destroyed a brand new come-along and dented my truck. The tree was still standing and still leaning precariously towards my house. I ended up paying a local logger to take it down. Although my efforts failed to bring down the tree, because of my tenacity, I discovered several ways that do not work.
Despite this disastrous lesson, my wife marvels at how good I am at solving problems when they arrive in our lives. She also says being married to me is never boring.
” The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary,” Thomas Edison
Inventive They say necessity is the mother of invention. The creative person needs to invent. We see new applications for old ideas.
In my math show I demonstrate the power of compound interest with a checker board and a story about a king and a jester. The original idea is the old trick of putting a penny on the first day of a calendar, then putting double the amount on each of the following days. By the end of the month, the amount is an in- credible $10,737,418.23.
I changed the calendar to a checkerboard, which means 64 days. The total becomes over eight septillions. I added a story about the king and jester and I ended up with an informative and educational routine that is very memorable.
Visionary – Creative people have a vision. They see what they want to accomplish and apply their skills to that end. As we reach goals and encounter new challenges, our vision changes, too.
” Vision is the ability to see what change is needed and how it will benefit people,” David Pottruck
- Student: “This course wasn’t relevant.”
- Professor: “If something as vast as mathematics or science or history can pass through your brain without even scraping the sides on the way through, that’s a pretty big hole. Are you sure it’s the course that doesn’t relate to anything?”
To the curious mind, all things are relevant. We are just searching for relevance.
As an educator, I find if I can make a subject relevant to the student, they will develop an interest. Do the young men in your group like athletics? Why not tell the story of Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner who refused to race on the Sabbath?
Do the girls like ponies? Time to talk about Jeremiah 12:5 and not growing weary in serving the Lord. Be sure to have your stick horses on hand.
Energetic – Creative people have lots of energy. Often our sleep is interrupted because our brains will not stop thinking. Our energy is our enthusiasm in action. A creative person channels their energy into activity.
Creative people dive into tasks. Personally, I am a morning person. I like to get up at dawn and dive into the day’s work. I am awake and alert and ready to go. If I get momentum, I will not stop until midnight. I have lazy days, and I also have a tough time starting at all if I start late. But when I am at a task, my mind gets focused and my creative mind just goes.
