Quotes about Creativity

The Psalms are not only poetry in themselves; they are to be the cause of poetry in those who sing them, together and individually. They are God's gifts to us so that we can be shaped as his gift to the world.

To write or read a poem is . . . to enter into a different kind of thought world from our normal patterns. A poem is not merely ordinary thought with a few turns and twiddles added on to make it pretty or memorable. A poem (a good poem, at least) uses its poetic form to probe deeper into human experience than ordinary speech or writing is usually able to do, to pull back a veil and allow the hearer or reader to sense other dimensions.

Jesus is often seen as someone who can "teach" you to play the piano, so that you can perform Mozart and Beethoven. But Jesus was more like someone who had just invented an entirely new musical instrument, had written some stunning music for it, and was now "teaching" people to play the new music on the new instrument. Jesus was announcing that a whole new world was being born and he was "teaching" people how to live within that whole new world.

When art comes to terms with both the wounds of the world and the promise of resurrection and learns how to express and respond to both at once, we will be on the way to a fresh vision, a fresh mission.

We are his poi?ma', his 'poem', his 'workmanship', wrote Paul (Ephesians 2.10), 'created . . . in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared' — not simply 'good works' of moral behaviour, but the fresh creativity whose rich variety reflects the lavish creativity of God himself, thereby offering a sign to the powers of the world that Jesus is lord and they are not (Ephesians 3.10—11).

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.

Music has no limits of a life-span.

Art is a visual language, and Christians have a responsibility to learn that language.

Stories and images can be powerful means for conveying ideas. Every time we read a book or watch a movie, we enter into an imaginative

Our vocation and professional work is not a second class activity, something we do just to put food on the table. It is the high calling for which we were originally created. The way we serve a Creator God is by being creative with the talents and gifts He has given us.

Artists are often the barometers of society.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.