Take a moment to think of one creative person in your life. Flip the pages of your mind’s photo album where you hold pictures of your family, your coworkers, your classmates, your fellow church members. Select someone you know who makes, fashions, or builds. And consider: could she benefit from being built up herself?
While each of us has creative sparks within us, there are some who intentionally use paintbrushes, flutes, yarn, and tap shoes to make art and others whose primary tool is their imagination. Wherever the creative person you have in mind lands on this spectrum, he could probably use some nurturing.
Artists are often aching. Many wrestle with self-doubt. Some feel isolated and lonely in their craft. Others can’t shake feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood, and underappreciated. Beyond a simple pat on the back, creatives yearn for connection, confirmation of their calling, and growth. You may be someone who can meet them where they are, affirm what you see in them, and help them develop and thrive.
Creatives yearn for connection, confirmation of their calling, and growth.
As a ministry leader who is a spoken word poet and artist mentor, I’m often asked how families and churches can cultivate the artists in their midst. Wendell Berry offers a helpful metaphor in the context of agriculture. He distinguishes between a nurturer, someone concerned with giving to the land so it can sustain well-being and production over the long haul, and an exploiter, who is concerned with taking from the land for short-term gain. If we’re not careful, we may find we’re taking from artists and using their craft for our benefit, rather than nurturing them and helping them steward their gifts.
Here are three ways we can nurture and give to the creatives in our churches and communities.
1. Show wonder.
Showing wonder involves drawing near to an artist like a child in awe, being sincerely curious about her work and attentive to her as a person. You could ask what media she uses, which artists influence her, and what inspires her. And you can share how her art impacts you. Most artists value hearing how you experience their art and what you appreciate about it when they share their art with you.
Sincere curiosity and affectionate attention demonstrate a willingness to pause and see, hear, understand, and appreciate the artist and their work. And creativity is a glorious tool for bridging the gap between Christians and differently believing folk. Whether the person you are nurturing professes faith in God or not, as you pursue the artist in conversations, you can magnify the Lord and his work in their art-making life.
2. Affirm God’s care for artists and their art.
Does God care about creatives and their creativity? Immensely. The very first verse in the Bible says, “God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). He fashioned heaven, earth, animals, insects, and much more.
There are 17,500 species of butterflies. I wonder if we truly need that many. God could have made one species containing millions of butterflies. Instead, he made 17,500 different species. While there are many biological and ecological reasons God may have designed so many, their variety of colors and patterns also affirms the goodness of creativity.
God ascribes artists and their art with dignity.
On the sixth day of creation, God created people. And to some people God gives ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship to devise artistic designs (Ex. 31:1–5). God ascribes artists and their art with dignity. We should affirm this truth to the artists in our churches. Especially if you have been walking with a creative for a while, you can encourage her by sharing how you see God uniquely equipping her to create for God’s glory.
3. Show that you’ll champion them.
Another way to nurture an artist in your life is to show that you’ll champion him. Ask what his artistic goals are and how he’d like you to support them. Support might include coming to his events or buying artwork, which demonstrates you see the monetary value in his work. Support could be capturing photos and videos for an artist so he can display his work on social media pages.
Consider your spheres of influence and the unique ways you can amplify a creative’s voice. If you’re a church leader, consider hosting an event at your church to highlight artists in your congregation. Another option is hosting an open mic night or a pop-up art gallery to draw out creatives in the community from various faith backgrounds. For artists like me who shy away from promoting our work, having art champions lifts our art esteem and builds confidence to keep creating art to reflect God’s glory.
Do you still have your creative person in mind? Consider the next time you might be able to show wonder about their craft, share God’s care for their art, and show that you are committed to their flourishing.
The Gospel Coalition