What is School For? Brilliant Thoughts from Seth Godin on Art, Creativity and Education

This is an amazingly challenging video from one of the great minds of our day, Seth Godin. If you’re at all interested in art, creativity and/or education, you must watch this video.

The Dangers of Religion

I often say I am not a big fan of religion and when a minister says something like that people give me strange looks as if I am being cute or playing word games. That is not the case.

I’ll give you an example using one of my favorite examples, the Amish. Now let me first state that I believe the Amish love Jesus and we could all use a lot more simplicity in out lives, but yesterday my wife and I were heading through Lancaster county Pennsylvania when we got behind the people in this photo. You may or may not know this but the Amish are not allowed to have rubber tires except in certain circumstances. This tractor had huge rubber tires, (many Amish folks will replace them with steel wheels) An Amish farmer and two small children were in the cab while an older man and an Amish child were riding in the wagon with steel wheels. It is so confusing. For the most part they avoid vehicles in favor of buggies, they also often use horse drawn farm equipment. Further they ride bicycles and scooters with rubber tires. Why can certain things have tires, other things can’t? Why can some have tractors but not cars and why can they not have cars, but they can let other people drive them around? Why s it wrong to have a phone in your house but okay to have one in your barn? It’s all so confusing but then so is religion.

The Bible has nothing to say about rubber tires, of course. Rubber was still just tree sap when the canon was closed. Where did they get the idea that rubber was wrong, but in some cases permissible and in other cases forbidden. It’s pretty simple really. It started as tradition, likely when the first cars showed up and people decided they didn’t like it so they started making rules.

Before you think I am picking on the Amish alone, it goes far beyond the Amish. I love creativity, and I think the church needs to embrace creativity so much more than we do, but we can’t get creative with the rules and the Word. The Bible is our guide book (among other things) it needs to be followed without taking anything away or, and this is important, adding anything to it. The answer to society’s problems is not tacking more onto God’s law. The Pharisees did that and it didn’t go well. That’s because law can’t save. The answer to society’s problems is what it’s always been.

Jesus.
We don’t need more religion or more laws, we need Jesus.

Create ways to share His truth and trust that He will bring the changes we need.

Creation Station: The Aye Aye and God’s Love

The latest video from my new VBS Curriculum Creation Station. This one is about God’s love. I’d love to bring Creation Station to your church in 2014. For more information contact me at AMOKArts@aol.com.

Just Cause I Love This…

I know I have shared this before, but it bears repeating.

How would you introduce Jesus?
‘Cause that is a big part of what we’re called to do, thanks Steve Harvey!

Turning Liabilities Into Assets

Some of you have seen Phil Hansen’s story on this blog before but since he is one of my favorite artists and he recently appeared on Last Call with Carson Daly, I thought I’d tell you again. Phil always dreamed of being an artist but doing massive amounts of pointillism caused him to have permanent nerve damage in his drawing hand, which caused his hand to shake. It could have been the end of his art career but instead he decided to “embrace the shake.” In the process, he became (in my opinion) one of the most inventive artists of our time.

What in your life feels like a liability? How can you turn it into an asset?
For more on Phil Hansen go to Philinthecircle.com
To be a part of his latest project, click here.

How to Get a Free Painting…

No it’s not a contest but it is very cool. I had such a good week this week. I preached my last revival/spiritual renewal service at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren last night. This was a great thing for me. You see it was at a revival meeting at Mohrsville Church of the Brethren in 1986 that I came to Christ. I also got my call to ministry there, preached my first sermon there and it was there that the first “seeds” of AMOKArts were planted. It was like coming full circle. It was really nice to connect with old friends and make new ones. I had a really great time.
What was even better was a little boy asked me to pray with him to receive Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior, which is always awesome. Pray for him as He begins his journey.

IN each of these meetings, I did a live painting based on the parable I was preaching, but I also set up several paintings on smaller easels that I painted in advance. I used all these paintings to illustrate the message and it worked pretty well. Last night as I was greeting the people as they left One couple came up to me and told me about their son. Evidently he set up his easel in their kitchen after the meeting the night before. He also took several of their kitchen chairs and set them up around the easel, with other drawings he did clipped to them. (He didn’t notice that I put tarps on the floor, so it seems like mom had a pretty substantial cleanup but she was smiling, so I’m guessing it was okay). A young boy was trying to emulate what I do. Needless to say, that put a huge smile on my face. Who knows? Maybe he will be the next generation of art ministry. I can’t say for sure, only God knows his path, but I do know this,

I gave him last nights painting. What a blessing!

Some Words of Wisdom from Todd Henry and the Accidental Creative

I have a few podcasts I listen to every single week. One of the true highlights of my week is The Accidental Creative and this week’s post is particularly helpful. I knew I had to share it.

http://www.accidentalcreative.com/podcasts/ac/ac-podcast-selective-ignorance-of-feedback/

One of the big things about being a creative is knowing who you are and who you are called to reach.
If you try to please everyone, you’ll wind up pleasing no one, including (especially) yourself!

Take seven minutes and listen to the above podcast. You won’t be sorry!

Start. Dealing With Fear

I just started reading Jon Acuff’s new book called Start. The basic concept is to move from average to awesome. The first step is very simple. You need to Start.

The first step is to overcome fear. One of the big things is dealing with the “voices in your head” and what they tell you, the way they discourage you, etc. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone crazy and other than “the still small voice” I don’t hear actual voices, but there are those things we tell ourselves and inner voices that keep us from trying to succeed. My confession is fear kicks me around a lot.

He suggests you write down what the voices of fear and doubt tell you and he suggests you share them (actually he tells us to punch fear in the face). Well since I have a blog, I thought I would share them here.

Here’s what I hear. I hear that I’m a loser. That my ideas will never work. From there it can go into a downward spiral. And every mistake I make will somehow ruin me. The truth is all those things are absurd. I am a child of God, I am working toward my dream and the Lord is using the gifts He has placed in me to do some good in the world. These are all the things I need to remember and maybe you do too.

The bottom line from the Bible that we all need to remember is we were not given a spirit of fear but a Spirit of Sonship. The spirit of fear is a lying spirit. You can do great things, you might even be able to be awesome. The first step is putting fear in its place.

There is no try…

I saw this image on Facebook the other day and it bears repeating.

It’s my favorite quote from Yoda. There is no try… Do or Do Not. This is not to say there is no value in trying, but after a while, you’ve got to stop trying and just do it. Create the masterpiece, show it to the world and let the chips fall where they may.

This speaks to me today, how about you? Is there a positive area in your life where you need to stop trying and just do it? Is there a negative area in your life, where you need to stop trying and commit to quitting and living better?

IllustrationFriday.com Urban

I did this photo collage after seeing that the challenge was urban. It was inspired by a trip to Washington D.C. I was driving and I got lost in the maze that is my nation’s capitol. Just a few blocks from the opulence of all the huge marble buildings there are neighborhoods who are in need of the most basic essentials. Just blocks from the halls of power are people in desperate need of empowerment. The manicured lawns and architectural edifices almost succeed in making one forget that your’e smack in the middle of an urban area with real urban problems. I thought they needed a reminder, so I made one. I had to question how this could be. The very people with the resources to make a real difference seem too occupied with reelection to help.

But you know how when you point one finger you have four pointing back at you. The fact of the matter is, urban or rural, need is everywhere as are those with the resources to do something. If you can see a problem, there is probably something you can do about it. Every significant change starts with one person doing something. And remember, not all need is visible. Be attentive pray and do something.

Making a difference starts with caring enough to  do something.