The blank canvas was set before the artist. Commissioned to create a masterpiece, he scanned the palette of colors and dipped his paintbrush into a bowl of water, then slowly swirling it around until the brush had soaked up a good deal of paint. Satisfied with the tint on his brush, the artist went to work, painting broad strokes across the stark canvas, meticulously sweeping the brush back and forth with a growing passion and fervor.
The cycle continued. Dip in the water. Swirl in the color. Spread paint onto the canvas. Repeat. As the colors blended together, the artist made a sudden and radical decision. With the paint still fresh, he flipped the entire canvas over, exposing the unmarked underside. Without missing a beat, the artist swept a new stroke of paint onto the clear canvas and began afresh.
I stood over the artist’s shoulder, being careful not to disturb his work while too curious to keep a distance. “How is the painting going?” I inquired.
“I’m not finished, Daddy,” the artist said. More dips. More swirls. More strokes. Eventually, the artist became distracted and decided to take a step back from his work in order to play with trucks in his sandbox.
I held up the final product. It was a swirling mass of brushstrokes, the colors bleeding together and forming a sort of blackish-brown on the paper. He had chosen to mix all the colors at once and dip them into the tiny bowl of water: “I want to color the water,” he said, then slathered it onto the construction paper.
Will this abstract masterpiece end up in a Parisian museum for the world to see? No, but I couldn’t be more proud. See, this particular artist is my son, my child, my beloved. The artwork reflects the artist, imperfect and unfinished, yet cherished and blessed.
So it is with God and the work of youth ministry. Every action as ministers of the gospel in the lives of young people can and should be considered art.
“But, Joel,” you say, “I’m not one of those creative types. I’m not an artist.”
Says who? Who told you that you’re not an artist? What does God have to say about all this?
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (
In the beginning, God created. This is how Scripture initially reveals the character of God. He is a Creator, a Designer, a Producer of original works. Before we know anything else about Him, we learn God is the first Artist. God spoke, and light came into existence. He separated the light from the dark, the heavens from the earth, and the land from the seas as a sculptor chisels away marble to reveal new textures underneath.
The Divine Artist’s ultimate artistic endeavor is described in
This is the first clear instance of a poetic structure in Scripture. I don’t think this is a coincidence. The climactic moment of God’s creative work comes when He stamps His signature, His thumbprint, His own image into humanity. The imago dei is pressed into the center of every human being, and despite the marring of the image by the disaster of sin’s entrance into the picture, the thumbprint still remains.
The apostle Paul picked up on the artistic nature of God when he wrote these words to the Ephesian church: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
In some translations, the word workmanship is translated as masterpiece. The Greek word here is poema, the same root for our word poem.
We are God’s poetry, His masterpieces, His works of art.
Paul continued: We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. We are not static, stationary pieces in a museum. We are dynamic movements, created anew in Christ so we can do the good things He planned for us long before we came into physical existence. The Divine Artist creates with intentionality; no human being can be considered an accident, mistake or useless. God created us for a purpose—we have a vocation and mission that reflects His good character. What was the first description of that character? Creator. Artist.
We are art and artists, the created and creators. Seth Godin writes, “Art is what it is to be human.” So to come back to the possible objection, “I’m not an artist,” I say this: God says you are, and I believe Him.
In ministry, we must begin to view ourselves as artists. This is not limited to the seemingly artsy endeavors such as painting, film and music. I’m talking about everything we do—sermons, small-group discussions, worship services, missions trips, dodgeball tournaments, one-on-one coffee shop conversations—it’s all good work that God prepared for us to do. When making an outline for the mid-week talk we’ll give at a gathering, that’s art. When we’re stepping into a conversation with a volunteer leader who is struggling with feeling overwhelmed, that’s art. When we’re prayerfully guiding our group of middle school students through the discussion questions and leading them in prayer, that’s art. When we treat all our ministry efforts as works of art, we begin to develop the disciplines of an artist and foster a creative spirit that allows us to tap into the power of the Divine Artist’s thumbprint on our souls.
So how do we embrace our identities as artists? There are a few key practices and disciplines to foster the rhythm of creativity:
Patience: Art takes time. Nobody is born a perfect artist, and even the prodigies whose natural talents feel divine themselves need years of practice and coaching to hone their crafts. True creativity often feels more like a slog through the mud than frolicking through a field of wildflowers. Be patient and gracious with yourself and others in the creative process.
There’s a paradox regarding the relationship between time and creativity. Too little time given to creative preparation results in mediocrity and a thrown-together, last-minute quality. Yet too much time can foster either the extreme of perfection or the polar opposite of laziness—you work ridiculously hard on the project to make it just right, or you don’t work on it at all, thinking you have all the time in the world. The time devoted to our art lies in the balance between the urgent and the important. The best sermons I’ve preached came from weeks of preparation, yet some of the strongest moments in preaching come from last-minute decisions or Spirit-given revelations of insight while in the middle of teaching.
Inspiration: The Greeks called them muses or daemons. The Romans called it genius. The ancients believed the great artists and philosophers did not come up with their creative ideas on their own, but had help from invisible forces, artistic assistants from another realm. While that sounds mystical and mythological, there is a spiritual truth beneath it. There is something about creativity that simply comes upon us, an outside force that inhabits us, bringing with it visions of spontaneity, innovation and brilliance. We could call it the Holy Spirit.
You’ll have to have a ready posture for capturing the creative ideas when they come and position yourself in environments where inspiration can happen. Get out of your office and go somewhere you haven’t been before. Read books, blogs, magazines and newspapers outside of your range of expertise or passions. Watch a movie you typically would not watch such as a foreign film or something from the 1940s—unless that’s your thing, in which case go watch a romantic comedy! Create disequilibrium in your life that forces your mind and heart to seek new ways of balance. Then listen. Watch. Wait.
My best creative ideas always come in one of two places: when I’m driving or when I’m in the shower. I’ve pulled off the freeway to write down ideas on Starbucks napkins from my glove box. My family frequently has seen me rushing out of the bathroom, wet and dripping with a towel around my waist, rummaging through my messenger bag for a pen and Moleskin journal to scribble down whatever inspiration has come upon me. Here’s a tip for fostering creativity: Have a pen and journal nearby at all times. Write down every idea. Doodle. Scribble. Just get the ideas down somewhere so you’ll have them after the inspiration passes.
Connection: Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is just connecting things.” Creativity is combining, connecting and collaborating seemingly disconnected items, ideas, people or organizations. Look around you: Take two random objects you’re able to see right now and create a new youth group game or team-building exercise with them. Think of two teens or young adults in your sphere of influence who should know each other better and introduce them. Connect abstract spiritual concepts with concrete object lessons in your teaching prep. One of my favorite middle school events was a dodgeball tournament where teams signed up, everyone paid $5, and all the proceeds went to building a freshwater well in Uganda. Dodgeball and social justice is just making the connection.
Love: One of my favorite quotes from N.T. Wright is this: “Art is love creating the new world. Justice is love rolling up its sleeves to heal the old one.”
I appreciate Wright’s connection between art and justice, love and work. Art is a labor of love. When God created humanity as His masterpiece, He looked upon us and declared us “very good.” Even when our discipleship efforts are difficult and painful work with seemingly few results, our motivation always should be the sacrificial love of Christ on our behalf.
Our works of art in ministry may not always be perfect, but God is a good Father and loves us dearly. I once heard Donald Miller talk about how God is fathering us. He gave the example of a family who sat down for dinner and the father told everyone specifically what to do—when to take bites, how much salt to put on their food, etc. Then the father goes on to tell the family—wife and children—when to go to bed, when to wake up, where to go to college, who to marry, when to go to the bathroom, etc. He said this kind of family would be dysfunctional and the father seems to be a control freak. Yet a lot of people seem to believe God is this way with us, and they are trying to discern and perform according to His all-controlling will.
Miller went on to say that if God is fathering us, then He is trying to help us discover what is good, beautiful and true as little imager-bearers, little artists. It’s as if God sets a big sheet of butcher paper before us, gives us a huge box of crayons, and says, “Go.” He will teach and guide what is right and wrong, what is considered beautiful and/or profane. Instead of creating out of fear and insecurity (“I have to make this art perfect so my Dad will love me”), God encourages us to create from security in His love and grace. As God’s children, we are invited to create a world that reflects God’s heart—to do acts of justice, to befriend and love our neighbors, to adopt orphans, to extend grace and reconciliation to the brokenhearted, to disciple young people in the name of Jesus with the freedom of an artist beloved by the Father.
Joel Mayward is a pastor, writer, husband and father living in Langley, British Columbia. He’s been serving in youth ministry since 2003, and is currently the pastor of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at North Langley Community Church. A writer for numerous youth ministry publications and author of Leading Up: Finding Influence in the Church Beyond Role and Experience, Joel writes about youth ministry, film, theology and leadership at his blog JoelMayward.blogspot.ca.
