Much of worship revolves around the creative arts: music, drama, dance, visual arts and creative writing. Yet so little is written about the theology of creativity. Why should we be creative? Is creativity important? What part does creativity play in our worship of God?
I believe the first step in developing a theology of creativity is to focus on the Creator.
As Christians we worship a God who we believe is not only creative, but is the Creator (Genesis 1:1). Nothing exists without the Creator (John 1:3). God created everything we see and everything we cannot see.
Since we worship the One who created all things, then it is only natural that we would respond to the Creator with our own creative acts.
I have spent my life as a musician and it is no surprise that my children are musical. In a similar way we, as children of the Creator, imitate our Father by our own acts of creativity. Of course our crayon scribbles are poor imitations of God’s awesome creation, but we should not be afraid to imitate our Father even if our imitations are limited and flawed.
God creates out of nothing. We can only manipulate His existing creation. God’s creation is beyond our comprehension in magnitude, in detail, in perfection and beauty. Our creations are always small and so limited in comparison. But we can imitate Him and in our imitations reflect, however poorly, the glory of our great Creator God. Just as children imitating their parents brings joy to the parents, in the same way our gifts of creativity bring joy to our Heavenly Father.
I believe that our God is a lover of the arts and takes great joy in our creative offerings of worship. In later posts I will continue to look at creativity and what it means to be an artist that reflects our Creator God.
Question: What are some of the attributes in God’s creation that you believe we, as artists, should imitate?
by Jerry Wyrick, President of Worship Arts Conservatory
Worship Director at Crosspointe Church.