{"id":14104,"date":"2017-09-15T22:28:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T05:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14104"},"modified":"2017-09-16T07:09:55","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T14:09:55","slug":"stewards-of-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/stewards-of-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewards of Creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we read the book\u00a0 Visual Faith<\/em> by William A. Dyrness. Throughout the book he advocates for a renewal of the arts within worship and faith culture. One of many statements that he made stood out to me: “We must become better stewards of their gifts as we allow them to expand our corporate vision<\/em>.”[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was in High School, I attended a church were during the sermon an artist would be engaging in the message through visual art as they message was preached. At first, I had to adjust to this new response to the word but I did embrace it. One of my firm beliefs is that because God is our creator, we were made in His image and likeness; therefore, we possess the ability to be creative. With that said, I would make the assertion that we were all created to be creative beings. On January 30th 2015, I published a blog post for the High Calling entitled “On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Stewards of Creativity”. Within this short post, I made this statement that\u00a0“All of God\u2019s creation was given the ability to reproduce in some form or fashion. What makes our existence unique is that we were made in his image and likeness; therefore, we have the ability to create. This gift comes with the responsibility of stewardship<\/em>.” [2]<\/a> The post went on to state that “The ability to create is a supernatural connection between our earthly nature and our heavenly intertwining with the Holy Spirit. We cooperatively engage in seeing heaven brought to earth as we continue to yield to the guidance of the Spirit. In Ephesians, when Paul said we were God’s workmanship, I believe he was saying that we are His carefully imagined creative expression. We are hand-crafted to become everything He envisioned<\/em>.”[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Regardless of the form of art we choose to engage in, art has its place in communicating and providing a valid demonstration of the Gospel within the Kingdom of God. Dyrness affirms that “if we are to be citizens of this time, we must learn to speak (and enjoy) this visual language, even as we seek to translate the gospel into its colors and tones.<\/em>[4]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> The Gospel while is points to one Truth, it can be communicated in various ways. To limit or diminish the way in which is is conveyed is a disservice, in my opinion, to the great commission. We as ambassadors of the Gospel must be open to way in which the Spirit leads us to share both verbally and visually. The renewal that Dyrness speaks off in certain faith communities is a shift in how we understand the revelation of the Spirit. My prayer is that we do not lose sight of the fact that we are created to be creative!<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>. \u00a0William A. Dyrness,\u00a0Visual faith: art, theology, and worship in dialogue<\/em>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 161.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> “On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Stewards of Creativity,” On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Stewards of Creativity – The High Calling – Theology of Work, January 30, 2015, , accessed September 16, 2017, https:\/\/www.theologyofwork.org\/the-high-calling\/blog\/earth-it-heaven-stewards-creativity.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> IBID.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> William A. Dyrness,\u00a0Visual faith: art, theology, and worship in dialogue<\/em>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 157.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we read the book\u00a0 Visual Faith by William A. Dyrness. Throughout the book he advocates for a renewal of the arts within worship and faith culture. One of many statements that he made stood out to me: “We must become better stewards of their gifts as we allow them to expand our corporate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-14104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dyrness","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14104"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14111,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14104\/revisions\/14111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}