I LOVE the idea I’m sharing today! Sara Laughed is a fun and creative blog and this year she is doing a Bible journaling challenge called Advent Illustrated. Throughout the Advent season (from November 29th to December 24th), Sara will share a Bible verse, starting with Genesis and extending to the nativity story. She will also provide creative prompts for folks who need a little bit more inspiration. Everyone is encouraged to share their art journal project on her Facebook page or on Instagram with the hashtag #AdventIllustrated. Continue reading
spirituality
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #208 — Wired for Creativity
Standard
For National Book Month we’ve been exploring books for artists, creatives and worshipers! The month is winding down, but we still have several more books to cover!
Candace L. Long is writer of plays (both screen and theater), books and songs, and a 40-year veteran of the arts and entertainment industry! She is the author of two books I’d like to point out today:
Wired for Creativity recounts her journey into a spiritual desert / wilderness experience and reveals over 60 biblical principles the Lord taught her on surviving the creative calling. According to one reviewer, “It’s a thorough discussion of the roots of the creative personality and real solutions to obstacles we encounter. It gave me some real peace and strength.” (Disclaimer: this book is VERY expensive on Amazon, but very affordable on Candace’s website.) Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #206 — Praying With the Body
StandardTo celebrate National Book Month, we continue our focus on books for creatives, artists and worshipers.
Praying With the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life by Ray DeLeon is a great resource for those who want to engage their whole selves in their prayer practice.
In Praying with the Body readers will find both prayer tools
and companionship. Black and white drawings showing the postures and expressions of the body, accompany the scripture texts and explanations by Roy DeLeon. Working together, these elements invite readers to taste, explore, and discover a new and different way of knowing God. This book is for anyone who wants a more integrated and reconciled approach to prayer.
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #204 — Finding Divine Inspiration & Creative Church Handbook
StandardNational Book Month continues with more books for creatives, artists and worshipers!!
Arts advocate J. Scott McElroy is the author of two works on creativity. In Finding Divine Inspiration: Working with the 
Holy Spirit in Your Creativity, McElroy encourages his readers to work in collaboration with Holy Spirit in their creative process and provides a strong Biblical and historical perspective for the Holy Spirit’s role in creativity. The book also includes interviews with painter Thomas Blackshear, Dan Haseltine from Jars of Clay, Peter Furler of Newsboys, and writer/producer Buzz McLaughlin.
Creative Church Handbook: Releasing the Power of the Arts in Your Congregation is McElroy’s latest release. It includes practical advice for churches wanting to add greater levels or artistry and creativity to their services. He also provides guidelines for establishing a worship arts ministry, as well as advice on how to impact your community through the arts. Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #203 — Cultivating Kingdom Creativity
StandardMore creative books for National Book Month!
Theresa Dedmon has been on staff at Bethel Church in Redding, California since 2003 where she currently oversees the Creative Arts department at Bethel’s Supernatural School of Ministry and in church life. She is the author of two written works on creativity.
Cultivating Kingdom Creativity: a Practical Guide to Releasing Supernatural Encounters Through Prophetic Arts in Your Personal Life, Church, and Community. “Learn how to access new levels of creativity. Receive an impartation for breakthrough in creativity. Experience activation exercises that will propel you towards your creative destiny.” Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #189 — Windows of the Soul
StandardContinuing our book focus for the rest of September and October . . .
In Windows of the Soul, author Ken Gire proposes that art, poetry, scripture, movies, writing, nature, tears and depression are all windows given to us by God to see into our own souls. Imploring his readers to look with more than their eyes and to listen with more than their ears, he says:
“We must be aware, in all
times and in all places, because windows are everywhere, and at any time we may find one. Or one may find us. Though we hardly know it . . . unless we are searching for him who for so long has been searching for us.”
Published in 1996, it has helped readers find themselves through the many creative avenues that we hold so dear. My pastor mentored through this book during my time as worship pastor at our church. It’s a great tool for individual or group study, as well as for spiritual mentoring and direction.
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #188 — The Impressionist
StandardContinuing our September/October focus on books for creatives, The Impressionist is a novella by Tim Clinton and Max Davis all about becoming the masterpiece you were created to be.
The jacket cover reads:
Middle aged, disappointed and self-loathing, Adam Camp is anything but the picture of a successful man. With his wife threatening to leave him and
their son addicted to drugs, Adam teeters on the verge of absolute despair—questioning his own existence and purpose for living.
After an explosive argument with his wife, Adam searches for an escape as he sets out on a journey that will dramatically recolor his world. While walking through the city park, Adam is approached by an old painter. The mysterious artist convinces Adam to let him paint his portrait and what happens next is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #185 — Books from Jews for Jesus Writers
StandardOctober is National Book Month, so I’ll be posting links to books for creatives, artists and worshipers the rest of September and throughout October!
Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for our Jewish and Messianic Jewish friends. So in honor of this holy day, I wanted to share several books that reveal Jesus Christ in the symbolism of several Jewish holidays.
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #181 — Walking on Water
StandardOctober is National Book Month so for the rest of September and throughout October we’ll be focusing on books for creatives and artists.
Many of you have read Madeleine L’Engle’s popular 1980 book entitled Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art many years ago. But of course, I do want to recommend it, just in case you are new to this “creative” or “artistic” journey. I would be remiss if I didn’t point it out.
There is so much to be gleaned 
from this treasure from an incredibly prolific and creative writer.
“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #170 — Blind Artist Sees Color
StandardToday’s post begs the question: What can you do in faith when life’s circumstances blind you from seeing God?
Light in the Dark
(C) John Bramblitt
bramblitt.net
This is a remarkable story about John Bramblitt, an artist creating brilliant paintings despite being blind. You’ll want to read the whole story here where you can see his beautiful work. There’s also two videos that help tell his story and process for painting with limited vision. Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #169 — Walk Thru the Lord’s Prayer
Standard
On Steal Our Stuff blog you can find some great resources. I want to refer you to a specific post for an interactive prayer walk called A Walk Through the Lord’s Prayer. It was created for a youth confirmation program, and is now available as a free download for your use. A wonderful resource for your church, ministry or prayer event. Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #166 — The Bible on Creativity & the Arts
Standard
What does the Bible have to say about creativity and the arts? Although this list may not be exhaustive, it definitely reflects God’s heart toward creation, creativity, artistry, artisans and craftsmen. Please use and share this as a resource for those in creative and prophetic ministry!
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #163 — The Power of Music
Standard
This is a very poignant and touching example of the power of music to communicate, connect and heal!
In this video, Naomi Feil, founder of Validation Therapy, shares a breakthrough moment of communication with Gladys Wilson, a woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2000 and is virtually non-verbal. Feil is a Jewish woman, yet she sings Christian hymns for Gladys because she knows it is those hymns that will resonate deeply in her spirit. Continue reading
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #162 — Dancing In Your Calling
Standard
I love this inspiring story from the Dance Theatre of Harlem. It reminds me of the story of Gideon. While he was hiding from Israel’s enemies, threshing wheat on a winepress, the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon responds, “Pardon me, my lord, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about . . . But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” Continue reading
Create-A-Day, your daily dose of creativity #160 — Nature Inspired Art
Standard
Photo by Maddy Thomae
This is an amazing video from Rachelle Chinnery about how nature informs her artistic process.
It’s 4 1/2 minutes and definitely worth the watch!!
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #158 — BodyPsalms
Standard
Our bodies often cry out to be heard, recognized, nourished. Yet sadly we ignore their cries and live disembodied lives bound by ill-health, dis-ease, and unhealthy desires!!
On BODYPSALMS, Dr. Celeste Snowber shares poetry with a distinctly body-oriented (and body-listening) spin! According to Celeste on her site:
“Bodypsalms are openings for us to deeply listen to words that hold the intention of our own depths, and call us back to living in our own skin. I write these in the tradition of the psalms, which extend from lament to ecstatic living, but are both an asking and listening at the same time. I have written them or they have written me out of the particularities of my own life, but I firmly believe that we live storied lives and we find each other in our collective stories.”
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #157 — Tongues, Art & St. Paul
Standard
In this article entitled Tongues, Art and St, Paul’s Rules of Order: A Few Suggestions author Amber Noel proposes that a certain aspect of the arts could be taken as glossolalia or tongues:
“Could it be that art, at its best (or at what we might call its most Spirit-led), produces a kind of visual, verbal, aural glossolalia that others may then attempt (again, by the same Spirit) to interpret well? On the other hand, if an act of artistic “speech” and its translations fall flat, or explode into total, unmanaged chaos, then could we perhaps turn to First Corinthians for clues on discernment and order?”
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #150 — Color a Prayer
Standard
I have referred you to 12 Tribes, the art ministry of Cindy Fort before (see this post here), and I want to send you there again today to a post about coloring your prayers.
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #141 — Wilderness to Water
Standard
Wilderness to Water by Tom Graffagnino is a book that travels through grief to grace by way of the author’s artwork, photographs, poetry, and writings.
According to reviewer Kevin Moss, the book is divided in two:
“The book is split essentially into two halves: ‘Wilderness’ is a monochrome exploration of life’s tough times, explored through sketches, poems and a very thoughtful connecting narrative. Tom’s own wilderness experiences clearly prompt and influence the text, but they are never pushed at the reader. The second half, ‘Water’, is based around colour photography but maintains the poetry and narrative structure, to focus on the ways in which God breaks into our lives, even at the lowest points, to refresh, strengthen and ultimately bring us new life. The two metaphors of wilderness and water are very apt as a description of human experience.”
Create-A-Day: your daily dose of creativity #139 — Why the Church Needs Art, Pt 4
Standard
Tuesday we started a four-part video series by artist Scott Erickson called Why the Church Needs Art: Stories of an Artist in Residence. We’ve been learning wisdom from his experience as an artist-in-residence at Ecclesia Church in Houston, Texas. Lots of artists have been watching this series along with you. Lots of people are remarking how the army of Christian artisans and creatives is arising in our churches. Who knows if YOU have been called into your current situation for just such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)
As you consider that thought, it’s time again to grab your cup o’ Joe and join us for some great insights from a fellow artist on the journey of creativity!
Here’s part 4:
Nurturing the Creative Spirit Within 