Creativity

Great Bible Teachers need to cultivate creativity. It's a God-provided attribute of the human mind to be creative, and expressive. We are made in His image, and He is powerfully creative.

But for some reason creativity can fade and weaken, particularly as we become mature. I read about a man who asked a kindergarten class "Who is an artist?" and nearly every child raised his hand. He asked the same question to 3rd graders, and half raised their hands. He did the same thing with progressively older grades and fewer children raised their hands. In the high school only one or two teenagers would raise their hands.

Great Bible Teaching demands creativity. We are not inventing the Truth, because that's been given to us. Our creativity is needed to do a better job of presenting the Truth so it can be understood and absorbed. We want to teach to change lives!

Let me suggest a few starting points for cultivating creativity:

1. Spend time each day using your imagination. A great way to develop your imagination is to picture yourself in the Bible stories. What do you see? smell? feel? taste? hear?

2. Practice paying attention. Concentrate on things. Really observe a plant, an object in your house. See if you can draw it in a notebook.

3. Intentionally learn about new subjects, something that you aren't already familiar with. Many, many teaching insights and illustrations can come from the intersection of new things. Jesus helped the disciples understand things about God's character by teaching them botany!

4. Journal your thoughts. Don't worry about where they go, just monitor them and see if you can write them down.

Do you have other suggestions?