The end of the world…

Well we made it. If the Mayans were right today is the end of the world. I seriously doubt this to be true, after all Jesus said “No one will know the day or the hour…” but here’s the thing. Just because the whole world does not end doesn’t mean it won’t end for some. The mortality rate in this world is nearly 100 percent. You might be thinking, “Wow uplifting post, Dave” but please hear me out. You see, the truth is I believe we should live each day as if it were our last. This doesn’t mean we live fatalistically, not should we live hedonistically. No, we should make the most of each opportunity, of each day. We should choose to live a life that matters. We should choose to face life optimistically. We should make the most of our lives. We should choose to invest time in the people we love and we should do it all to the glory of God.

Is this the last day? Most likely, no, but make the most of it. Make great art or make the day a work of art. Spend time with the people you love. Serve somebody. Make a difference. Start something exciting and new and in the midst of it all, praise the One whose birth we celebrate in just a few days, who came to give us a hope beyond this world.

Maybe the end of the world as we know it isn’t such a bad thing, especially if we are living to make a new and better world.

Opinions Needed

I have a lot of graphics for BewareofArtists.org, but I am thinking I need a logo. I came up with this design and I’m not sure I love it. Then I thought I have this whole tribe of really creative people to ask, so here it is.

What do you think?

BewareofArtists.org Preview Philanthropic Friday: Count Your Blessings and Help Someone Else

Every so often I like to give you something just to inspire you. I wanted to do that today and I was a little blank so I typed the words “remarkable art” and this video came out. With that came my inspiration. Hopefully you’ll be inspired too.

I can’t speak for you, but I have experienced times of creative frustration in my life, times in which I have lamented the various things in life that I consider to be lacking. After seeing this video I feel pretty foolish. I have been blessed with so much, and I need to take what I have and do the best I can with it.

Take a cue from this amazing artist, Gille Legacy. Forget what you lack, focus on what you have, be grateful for it and do something remarkable.

But don’t stop there use what you have to help someone else be remarkable. Find someone who could use your help, someone with something in them that they need to get out, maybe someone who lacks resources or someone who perhaps has a physical, mental or emotional struggle, and help them to create something meaningful. Share a project at a youth center, a hospital, a retirement community, or other facility. Offer your services at a shelter or a school. Seek out the community resources for the people you feel drawn to help and volunteer or just take to the streets and see who you find. Who knows what you might help them to accomplish?

BewareofArtists.org opens January 1, 2013. Go there and Subscribe today.

Sunday Morning Reminder

Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in Advance for us to do.” In other words, you were created on purpose, for a purpose so live on purpose!

Prayer Request…

Hi everyone,
Could you please keep my family in prayer? I came home from work to see a sky full of smoke. My brother in law’s barn in the valley not far from my house was fully involved in fire. The barn is a total loss and many cows died in the flames but all the people are safe and sound for which we praise God. Please keep them in your prayers as they clean up and hopefully rebuild.
God bless,
Dave

Tell a Better Story: The Perfect Candidate

Once there was the perfect candidate for leadership. His character was impeccable. His record was flawless. He was young and energetic and intelligent but more than intelligent he was wise. He was kind and compassionate generous and giving. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth and while uncommon, he related to the common man, yet he was very powerful. He stood up to the powers that be and opposed injustice. His decisions were flawless and he always worked for the greater good. He said what He meant and meant what he said. He never made a promise he did not keep. He was the perfect candidate.

What happened? The powers that be didn’t like that he questioned their authority and their decisions. They showed his constituents that he would not give them everything their greedy hearts desired and that he would not allow them to live in the anarchy of lawlessness. Eventually the majority turned on him and they elected to kill him, by nailing him to a cross.

The perfect candidate was Jesus Christ. There has never been another. We had one perfect candidate and we killed him because he wouldn’t do things in our imperfect messed up, broken, destructive way.

But there is good news. He died in our place, to pay a price we could never pay and on the third day He rose again. He is still a leader, a great leader, the greatest leader ever. With Him it’s different. We don’t vote for Him once every four years. We elect Him every time we face a decision.

Elect to follow Jesus every day. He’s still the perfect candidate.

Finishing Out the Year A Night AMOK Style

Okay guys I’d like to do A Night AMOK a few more times this year. It’s five live paintings with stories, video, music and drama all designed to help people come to meet Jesus and find and live out his creative purpose for their lives. All I need is a free will offering and a night’s lodging if I’m farther from home in the Reading, PA area. It’s been well received everywhere it’s gone. If your church would like a program touches hears and minds, contact me at amokarts@aol.com

Please note, if you’re far away from PA why not team up with a few other churches in your area and hold a little weekend mini-tour.

Need more details, click here!

Could It Be That Easy?

What is the first step to becoming an artist? Talent? Perhaps to some degree, but lots of people have talent. Making art? That’s a big part of it too, of course but there’s something that I think must come first. (For the moment let’s leave gifting and call out of it. Trust me, we’ll get back to that).

As you may know by now I am rather fond of Picasso’s quote that “All children are artists, the problem is to remain one when one grows up.” There’s an almost instinctive part of us that desires to make art, perhaps to leave our marks on the world, perhaps to be understood, perhaps just to get something out that is inside us. Yet as we grow, many people stifle this drive until they finally end up walking up to people like me and “confessing” that they can’t draw a stick figure, which is, for 99.995% of the population, a lie. What makes a person an artist? Something very simple.

The first step in becoming an artist is saying you’re an artist, followed very closely by believing you’re an artist. Owning the fact that you are an artist, makes you work around your perceived shortcomings to bring to life the creations that are on your heart and mind. In a sense, by this standard, everyone is an artist needing only to find their vision and the means to bring it out. It might be done with a paintbrush, a wrench or even just your words.

I believe we were all ultimately created to create by a loving Creator.

You are an artist, a small c creator, inbued by your Creator to bring something to “life” that will make someone’s world (or maybe the whole world) a better place.

You are an artist, believe it!

(and yes, it is that easy.)

A Brief Update

You may have noticed I haven’t posted a Platform post  in a couple days. The reason for that is simple. The chapter I’m on now is creating some work. It’s about developing landing pages. I have landing pages on my site but on looking at his specifications, I’ve seen areas where mind are lacking. I’ve not given up on this Platform project. I just have some work to do.

Also I’m preparing for a few speaking engagements in the next three weeks and a few new projects which I’m really excited about. Great stuff is coming!

To Be Creative or Not to Be Creative? That is the Question

I bet you never thought you’d see me suggesting there is a time to not be creative, but for the church, I’m not suggesting it, I’m saying it outright. There are times, or perhaps places, where we’re not allowed to be creative. When it comes to methods we can be creative as all get out. If it doesn’t involve sin, the sky’s the limit. On the other hand the message of the Bible itself is never subject to creativity. You may deliver the message any righteous way it will reach the people God puts before you, but you may not change the message, even a little bit.

The problem is, sometimes in the church we get this backwards. Ask any pastor of a congregation that’s a little too set in its ways what happened the time when he changed the way “we’ve always done it.” Chances are it didn’t go well. We Christians tend to like our routine. Make us uncomfortable with a new method and we’re liable to rebel. But hear this and hear it well, if that’s your attitude, you’re off mission. We are not in this world to be comfortable. We’re in this world to reach people for the Gospel. That means taking the message to them in a way that they can understand and receive. That requires creativity. Someone once asked me what kind of worship music I preferred. My answer was, “I hate disco.” They looked at me a little strangely as if I had lost my mind, until I replied, “I really like contemporary worship music, but if I thought I could reach my community by becoming the disco church, buy me a white leisure suit and some platform shoes cause we’re going disco.” The methods are flexible, be as creative as you need to be to do the Lord’s work.

The other problem is, in this politically correct society, there is a real temptation to change the message to reach the culture. We want to make the message acceptable to the culture. This can never happen. Culture is powerless to change the message. Oh we can try, but if we do it’s no longer the Word of God and we preach a false gospel. The Word of God has power to change culture precisely because it is the Word of God. If we try to be creative with the Word itself, we remove its power to change lives. We do this and then we wonder why nothing changes. Since Genesis 3 people have been trying to question and change what God said and all it ever brought was disaster. We need to keep the message pure and unadulterated. Remember Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power  ofGod for the salvation ofeveryone who believes…” (NIV)

Be creative with the methods but the message never changes, it is everything it needs to be all by itself.

From Dave’s upcoming manifesto, God and the Creative Process, coming soon from AMOKBooks!