“the average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing,
touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness,
inhales without awareness of odor or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

As a church creative, I am often moving through projects at a rapid fire pace. In order to stay ahead of the curve I am usually working on what is coming next while the people of my church are experiencing what I did last.  Today I am rereading Primal by Mark Batterson (getting ready for our series based on the book that starts this weekend) and Mark quotes da Vinci. The thought occurred to me…

“How often do I do this when it comes to experiencing God for myself?”

This morning I realized that I continually fall into the “Martha” trap. Spending so much time preparing for people to come to our church and experience God  that I myself fail to SEE God in the experience, HEAR what He is saying, FEEL His presence, TASTE His goodness, be AWARE of His movement, SMELL His fragrance, and THINK about what He has done.

Just the other day I was talking about when designing a worship experience, we want to stimulate as many senses as we can. We want our stage, lights, graphics, video, lobby all to look good to stimulate the eyes. We want the music, the speaker’s tone & the mix to all sound good to the ears. We want the lobby, the bathrooms, the sanctuary and the kids areas to all smell good to the olfactory. We want the coffee and the food in the cafe to taste good. And, as a church creative, I spend much of my time working to make sure that when a person walks into our church their senses are stimulated in the hope that this will somehow move them toward God.

As if good smelling bathrooms are the key to a person’s salvation.  

This is an easy trap to fall into.. After all, the worship experience is important, but if the experience design becomes more important then who it is ultimately designed for…  well #epicfail.

This morning is a gut check for me. I realize again, (I have had this realization before, but needed to be reminded) that I must intentionally create out of SEEING the Creator, HEARING His Word, FEELING His Presence, TASTING His Goodness, BEING AWARE of His Moves, SMELLING His Fragrance  and THINKING about what HE has done and is doing.

Practically this means I have to make the time to experience our worship experiences and ignore the voices calling to me from the production suite for at least one service a week. I think, in this season, with this one discipline I can be in the position to LOOK and SEE.

I would like to hear if this is a place you find yourself often and what practical disciplines you put in place to prevent it or if in it, get out of it? Leave me some comments..

So we have an artist friend (Kate) from Chicago who tells us that Belly Painting for Pregnancy is all the rage. So she came to Nashville to Paint Danielle’s Belly. I happend to be hanging out and to memorialize Steve Jobs recent passing and just cuz I’m a geek— well this is what we did.

*Video by Hidetsugu Murakami

Recently I had this thought -

“In the beginning, God CREATED the heavens and the earth.”

That thought lead me to think for a minute about what God’s creative process is, so I cracked my Bible – well actually I pulled up youversion on my iPad – and re-read Genesis 1.

Here are some things I noticed about what God did in the process of creation and what that creation process produced. – At this moment, these are cursory thoughts on the subject and as I examine my creative process and continue to connect with the Creator, there is opportunity to explore deeper into the creativity of God.

> God started without form.  

The first thing I notice about the creation account is that God gets right in the middle of the void -  the place without any form – and lets His Spirit fill the space from close proximity. He approached the blank page and hovered there for a while.

> God put it into words

 After hovering in the formless void, God spoke. He initiated creation by saying what he wanted to see.

> Words brought illumination 

What God spoke lit up the world in which he was creating. God could now see the canvas, see what could be there. God used words to start to shape what could be, even though nothing was there yet.

> God separated and categorized  - day from night, waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens

Early in the process God begins to put a structure in place for the rest of creation. He starts to give names to the pieces and places boundaries on different parts. Lines begin to appear.

> God made space 

What structure produces in this process is space. Space for detail, space for personality, space, really, to create. As if all the work of creation up until this point is really just preparing to create.

> God landed on solid ground

And then God lands on solid ground. Form has appeared and the earth is ready for plants and animals and humans. The idea has some traction, momentum is rolling, what is accomplished in the third day is far more detailed and fruitful then the previous two days combined.

> Solid ground brings growth

The momentum continues, and things begin to grow on there own.

> God put measures in place- seasons, days & years

Seeing that growth is occurring, God starts to define measurables for His creation. What are  healthy cycles for His creation? How much should be produced from it and when? How can growth be maintained? At this point in the process God answers these questions.

> Creation is fruitful & multiplies

Healthy cycles and measurable growth produce fruitfulness and multiplication. Life begins happen.

> God creates other creators in His image

Once the system is in place and the processes defined, God replicates himself. He creates man in His image, with the ability to recreate and manage His creation.

> Then the Creator rested

> At each stage of creation God evaluates His progress – and He saw that it was good. 

- That is all.