I begin, once again, teaching creative writing to 200 middle school students in partnership with Sharefest and Cal State Dominguez Hills. This has been a great opportunity to connect with the Greater South Bay communities and pour life into the next generation. I’ll be facilitating the class every Wednesday throughout the month of July, then I’ll begin teaching a more in depth creative writing class to high school students for their fall semester at Avalon High School.
I couldn’t help, in preparation for the class, think about the creative hand of God and how His creativeness flows within and through us. Some of us may not think to be creative, perhaps we view ourselves to be more technical, but creativity doesn’t always take on the form of art (as many of us perceive creativity to be). I’ve found creativity can be present in the mathematical field, in nursing, and in law enforcement. Creativity leads the way to produce many of the electronic products that have become common place in our lives, like phones and televisions. Being creative has birthed new avenues in the sanitation field by opening up doors to a more cleaner way of disposing our trash.
The reach is limitless and the areas in which creativity can be found is infinite.
All that to say, as children of God, we’re all creative. We have the amazing opportunity to allow God to use us in ways that can innovate new adventures. Submitting to the creativeness of God can open fascinating windows of fresh perspective. His creativity in us, for those of the Christian persuasive, can spawn sensational ways of witnessing to our unbelieving friends and family. When we allow God’s creativeness to take over, we open up ourselves to the infinite possibilities of life.
I encourage you to let go of any inhibitions you may have and allow God to take over.
How about you?
Let’s talk.
derrickengoy.us 
Have you heard of “A Whack on the Side of the Head” by Roger Van Oech? I think it’s a great book that anyone should read to, at the very least, get started on the road to creative thinking. Its premise is also that anyone can be creative, they just need to know they can be.
Going one step further than that, because creativity is something God put in all of us, I believe it isn’t just optional. We SHOULD be creative. This doesn’t mean we have to be 24-7 professional thinkers and creatives, but we should always be thinking, “Can this problem be solved in some other way?”. That applies to even the most mundane things, like supermarket checkouts or how to do our nails or our commutes.
In turn, we SHOULD also share our creative solutions with others. Little innovations add up to a critical mass, old ways of doing things die out, and–to quote a late creative–we “push the human race forward.”
BJ – Yes. Yes. And Yes. I love your thoughts on creativity not be optional. Thanks for your input.