Courageous Creativity
This month we’re celebrating with another one of our amazing strategic partners, Michelle Nunn, as she shares on Courageous Creativity. She steps into her new role as the first female Principal of Regents Theological College on 1 August. Cheering you on as a courageous creative Michelle!
I was recently in a meeting where the team was scheduling a fire drill for our Sunday services when one of the team said we should think about slides. At this moment, she was sensibly thinking about having an information slide ready to put on our big screen should the fire alarm sound and we need to evacuate the church. But my mind had not gone there; I was not visualising slides on the big screen. Instead, as my team clocked my questioning face, I repeated the word ‘slides’, and my mind did some mental gymnastics picturing a blow-up evacuation slide and experimenting with where it could be helpful in our chapel. Knowing each other well, laughter erupted as the divergence of thought became apparent, and suggestions abounded. After some self-checking, we resisted replacing the balcony stairs and blowing the budget on a blow-up evacuation slide.
This episode was a little reminder that, individually and collectively, we can imagine and reimagine. Sometimes sensibly, we check ourselves and stick to our working norms. However, there are also times when we must stop ourselves from retaining habitual patterns and traditions that aren’t yielding life or joy.
Creative Thinking pioneer Edward de Bono says ‘There is no doubt that creativity is the most important resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.’ It’s creativity that is first spoken about in the Bible, God’s creativity. A creativity that, as those made in God’s image, can be found within each of us. Creativity that Mayo Angelou says ‘you can’t use up….The more you use, the more you have.’
In these days, where relational and cultural conflicts abound, we need to recognise the capacity of the creativity within us. It’s time to cultivate courageous creativity in one another, realising its potential to transform and transcend our challenges and cultural conflicts for the common good. There are plenty of examples of women doing just that, like female missionary Lilias Trotter, both artist and missionary. She was mentored by John Ruskin, who saw her potential to become a renowned artist and encouraged her to give her life to her art. But she was determined to follow her heart for the Gospel and chose instead to combine her art and ministry. After ministering in London, Lilias courageously travelled to Algiers, in North Africa, learned the language and lived amongst the local community, ministering there for four decades. By the time she died in 1928, she and the women with her established 13 missionary bases with 30 workers known as the Algiers Missions Band. She had weathered political conflicts and courageously travelled by camel into areas never explored by European women. She used her creativity in painting and writing to share the Gospel of Jesus and build relationships with Arab women and Sufi mystics.
Missiologists today consider Lilias’s approach and devotional materials to be a hundred years ahead. Lilias could have chosen a more comfortable existence in the land she knew and become famous for her art. But she departed from the familiar and saw where her courageous creativity would take her. Consequently, she lived an exceptional life and left an incredible legacy. We, too, can live beyond comfortable norms and familiar ways of doing things and instead exercise courageous creativity. This may not take us across the world to Algiers. Yet, it can bring new life and joy, as we creatively and courageously overcome the challenges and conflicts we face in our relationships and God-given assignments.
If you want to join a community of women ‘reimagining’ together, keep a look out for more updates over the coming months!
References
De Bono, E. (1992). Serious creativity: Using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Pg. 169.
Conversations with Maya Angelou, (1989). Edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot, Literary Conversations Series (Interviews with Maya Angelou), Published by University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi. Page vii and x.
https://liliastrotter.com/about/ Huffman Rockness, M. (2020). Images of Faith: Reflections Inspired by Lilias Trotter. Volume 1. 2nd Edition. Published by Lilias Trotter Legacy Inc. 2nd Edition. Published by Lilias Trotter Legacy Inc.
