The number of really creative people is far lower than it should be.

Not that there is a line drawn somewhere to say who is and who is not creative. Such a dividing line would be subjective and blurred. I suspect that creativity is like art: I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.

I’ve been accused of creativity.

Maybe it has something to do with being a cartoonist. You see things a little differently. Or, if the left brain/right brain scenario is correct, it could be that right-brainers (the artsy people) are naturally more creative. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the brain-half dominance or the interests and skill?

My strong conviction is that since every pastor is expected to be a leader–it goes with the territory–in the same way, the shepherd of the Lord’s flock should also be creative in the way he thinks, leads, and speaks.

If the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of believers is likened to new wine that is never static, but always expanding, growing, and changing, and if the wineskin is required to be flexible and pliable in order to contain that new wine, then an important requirement is that the Lord’s people should be flexible and adaptable and creative.

A church that is wed to the status quo is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.

The question then is: whence cometh creativity?

The good news is: there is an answer to that.

If the Holy Spirit was the catalyst in God’s creation, and He was, then that same Spirit indwelling a believer can make him/her creative. It’s the same force involved in the forming of the world in the first place, giving us the very definition of “creative.”

“And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” That’s Genesis 1:2, putting the Holy Spirit at the forefront of the universe’s origins.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

Anything in that list about creativity? Not in so many words, but once you put all those 9 qualities together, the resulting concoction produces something much like it.

Concoction. Remember that word.

If “to concoct” means to stir in different ingredients, then a “concoction” is something of a “stew.”

Now, think of that “stew” as the inside of you.

The ingredients stirred into that concoction-which-is-you are: every experience you’ve ever had, every person you’ve ever known, every book you’ve ever read, everything you’ve ever learned.

Stir it up. Now, dip out a ladle full.

That’s a product of your self. It’s a fruit of your thoughts or of your imagination.

“Every imagination of their hearts was wicked.” That’s what Genesis 6:5 says about mankind in the pre-flood days.

I expect if you are as human as the rest of us, you know what it is for the imaginations of your heart to be ungodly–focused on yourself, devoted to finding pleasure, wanting what you want, figuring out ways to use other people for your purposes, that sort of thing.

The imaginations of your heart, that is, the concoction that is the sum total of who you have always been and are today, needs redeeming.

So, God sent us a parable of sorts.

Soon after escaping Pharaoh’s army, Moses and the Israelites traveled for days across the Sinai Peninsula without finding water. “When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter.”

The word “Marah” means “bitter.”

When the people complained to Moses, he told the Lord. God directed him to a piece of wood lying nearby. When Moses tossed it into the pool at the spring, the waters of Marah became sweet. (Exodus 15:22-25)

Over these centuries, countless sermons have been preached on this text. To my knowledge almost all the preachers saw the same thing: that wood which God gave to Moses and which he threw into the spring represents the cross of Jesus. Once the cross is added to the mix which is our life, it goes from bitter to sweet in a heartbeat.

Redeem the concoction–the reservoir, if you prefer–which is your inner life and the fruit it brings forth thereafter will be sweet and lifegiving.

Okay, still with me?

Now, here’s the fun part.

From this moment on–after you’ve been saved by trusting in the saving work of Jesus on that cross–the Holy Spirit is in residence inside you and He’s going to do something very special.

Think of Him as the Chef for your stew.

In olden times, I’ve heard, but have no personal knowledge of this, women would often have a “stock pot” hanging on the hook inside the fireplace. From day to day, they would add to the concoction whatever was available at the time. They ate from it each day and never exhausted it because they were forever replenishing it.

It’s possible that tidbits of that stew lingered in the pot for ages without being devoured alongside all the recent additions.

(Being a non-cook, I ran this by my wife who a) was horrified at the thought of such, b) figures it must have been in really primitive times, and c) thinks that if it happened at all, those who partook of it must have built up a resistance to any dangers such food contained. It would be extremely unhealthy, she is sure.)

At any rate, it’s still a workable hypothesis for our purposes here.

We do not empty out our life experiences each night and start afresh every day with a “clean bowl,” but add each day’s events and happenings to the concoction that was already occupying our “innards.”

And out of that comes the stuff of life, including whatever creativity we produce.

No two humans contain the same stew. No two have experienced life identically, have read the same books, known the same people, traveled to the same places, eaten the same foods, hurt themselves the same ways, married the same people, or worked for the same companies.

The concoctions inside each person are as different as their fingerprints.

Now, every time you read a book or magazine article, every time you hear a sermon or lesson, when you attend a concert or have a chat with the fellow on a park bench, you are adding to the inner mix of your life.

You have just changed. You are not the same person you were when the day began.

This is what allows you to think creatively.

The problem you could not solve yesterday you are seeing just a little differently today since you have changed and grown.

I apologize for not knowing the name of the book or its author–it must be one of the hundreds of books I gave away on retiring from the pastorate 5 years ago and again last summer after retiring as the director of missions–but I read about a company which teaches creativity to executives.

For several days, they bring the leadership of a company to their retreat house. During that time, they alternate the activities from fun things like paint ball and silly string fights, to work and brainstorming sessions.

At one point, the executives would be assigned the task of coming up with possible mottoes for their company for the following year. To jumpstart their thinking, each one would be given two or three magazines to flip through for ideas. These would be completely foreign to the field of their work, magazines like Elle, Ladies Home Journal, and Field and Stream. The ads and articles would often provoke the minds of the executives to think “outside the box,” to use an overworked metaphor.

And that’s why the pastor needs to read far outside his own field.

The easiest way to do this is to drive to the nearest public library and spend a couple of hours perusing the various magazines. Bring along a notebook and pen, because you’ll get all sorts of ideas for sermons, illustrations, and programs.

Most large bookstores have many times the selection of magazines of your library and do not mind readers taking one off the shelf and reading it, then replacing it. (We live in a great age, huh?)

My father was 95 years old when God called him away. Sometime later, my mom said to me, “We keep getting all these magazines Pop subscribed to.” When I asked what they were, she named Fortune, Time, and a few others.

That explained something. Every time I would make the 7 hour drive home, no sooner had I arrived and thrown my bag into the back bedroom than Pop would thrust a clipping at me or show me something he had read or make some suggestion about church based on what he was learning.

I came by it honestly, didn’t I?

(Bear in mind, Carl J. McKeever dropped out of school in 1926 to work in the coal mines. The eldest of what would become 12 children, he was doing a man’s work for a man’s wages at the age of 14. His formal schooling ended, but he never stopped learning and growing, not until the very last day almost.)

Read the Bible. Or, as Eugene Peterson put it in his wonderful book of this title, “Eat This Book.” What he’s suggesting and urging is that anyone wishing to know what God’s Word has for today should treat Scripture the way his pet once did an animal bone found in the forest: gnaw on it a little each day; hide it (in one’s heart, according to Psalm 119:11); and return to it from time to time and take it out and gnaw on it some more.

There is no substitute for the child of God who would grow, the called of God who would preach, and the leader of the Lord’s people who would be creative, than to bring God’s Word into the reservoir of his heart.

The promise of Matthew 13:52 is that one who knows God’s Word and is under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit will find new treasures every time he turns to this storehouse of wealth and knowledge.

Become a person of genuine prayer. Whatever it is on your plate–the slate of preaching and speaking opportunities on your calendar, the appointments awaiting you, the requests for new designs or programs or directions–“take it to the Lord in prayer,” as the old hymn urges.

As a cartoonist, often I will draw a scene and lay it aside until I learn what the person or person in the sketch are saying to each other. I pray for my cartooning. Before sitting in the food court at the mall for an hour of drawing, before presenting a program at a church or school, and before turning to the drawing table for my weekly quota of cartoons for our denomination’s website, I pray.

“Lord,” the prayer usually goes, “I want to do this well. Please guide me. When I meet people, use my conversation. Direct my hand that I may do this well. Help me to bless people and not wound anyone. Set a guard upon my mind, my eyes, my mouth, and my hand.”

If I’m searching for a caption for the drawing, I might pray, “Lord, you know every cartoon every drawn. You are the Source for all wisdom, humor, and understanding. Show me how to do this. Give me the words for this. I want to bless Thee and encourage the people who will read this.”

The source of creativity?

1. Repent of your sin and receive Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior.

2. Stay close to the Lord, stay obedient to the Lord, which allows the Holy Spirit to produce His fruit within you.

3. Continue to learn and read and listen for the rest of your life. Add something to the stock pot every day.

4. The best reading is Scripture. If bringing the words and ideas of others into your stock pot and combining them with the stew already there, if that mixture produces new insights and fresh ideas, how much more valuable it must be to add the Word of God.

5. Pray, asking the Lord to make you creative, to help you not to be bound by yesterday’s ways or last year’s methods. Remember, you are praying to the Great Creative One who delights in “doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19).

6. One final suggestion: surround yourself with creative people.

If you are the pastor of a large staff, you may not need every member of your team to be creative. You can get by with a few whose minds shift into overdrive and who get excited when asked to help you with a new challenge, find a new way of doing something, or to create a new program. But you need at least two or three.

If your church is small and you are the staff, either look for a few creative people inside the congregation to form your team or be alert for pastor friends in other churches.

To this day I sometimes call Dionne Williams in Gulfport, Mississippi, to bounce an idea off. He served our New Orleans church as minister of education in the early 1990’s and I quickly came to appreciate his quick mind. Every pastor should be blessed with one or more such staffers.

The two greatest hindrances to creativity are 1) protesting that “I’m just not creative, I can’t think the way you do,” and 2) a lack of new input into the stock pot of life. Taken together, they provide a perfect recipe for dullness.

The first shuts off the creative process before it gets started. It is rank unbelief, refusing to allow the Lord to do a new thing in one’s life.

The second is blatant disobedience, a refusal to grow.

Such should never be true of anyone claiming to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus, a child of the Heavenly Father, or a possessor of the Holy Spirit.

For one charged with leading the Lord’s people, a refusal to be creative–to allow God to give new ideas, new insights, new directions–must be the equivalent of unbelief itself, akin to the unbeliever who closes his heart against God.

David was nothing if not creative. So many of the Psalms sprang from his fertile imagination, devoted heart, and daily routine.

David sang, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” (Ps. 23:1)

That was creative. He was thinking of God in terms of his own daily grind of caring for his father’s flock.

David looked at the clouds moving across the sky, noticing how their shadows covered acre-size portions of the valley. He sang, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” (Ps. 91:1)

He remembered the battles he had fought, the enemies he had confronted and the close calls he had known. He sang, “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” (Ps.28:7)

He thought of all the times he had hidden in the caves near the Jordan Valley lest he be found by the murderous Saul. “In the Lord I take refuge.” (Ps. 11:1)

That’s how it’s done.

Your life situation added to your devotion to the Lord, plus whatever new thing God is doing in your life today–all of that equals something new, not there yesterday, and perhaps not available tomorrow.

Draw from that stock pot for today. Tomorrow’s will be different.