The Big Reveal (part 1: The Dream Takes Shape)

For a number of months now, I’ve been teasing and baiting my readers about something BIG coming in my life, dreams my family and I are dreaming, changes happening.

The wait is (almost) over.

I say “almost” because this thing is so BIG that I’m taking more than one post to reveal it. Starting today.

And I say “BIG” because it’s huge for me…it might not be so big for you once you read about it. Just so you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t blow you away. 🙂

I mean…this is my blog, so if it’s huge from my perspective, it’s not really false advertising or anything to call it BIG, even if you don’t end up thinking it’s all that. Right?

{Collective groan} “Oh, come on, Jeff, get ON with it!!”

Okay.

So I’ve shared in times past about my heart for creativity, and developing creative community. This is a dream my family shares, because for some strange reason we are all creative artists. I’m a writer/songwriter/musician. The Wild One is a creative photographer (and has excelled in any other visual art form she’s tried). And The Director is showing exceptional talent as a screenwriter/director. We didn’t plan a family of artists; we just are one. It was quite a moment for us when we realized that the seeds of creative community are under our own roof.

Having said all that…our journey has essentially detached us from institutional forms of Christianity, and although our heartcry is still to minister the love of Christ…our journey has also deconstructed our mindsets about what ministry is, and what it has to look like. We are learning not to stuff our gifts into a box called “the ministry”, but to let our gifts be the ministry. Plus, the things we’ve learned in recent years about being missional in our approach, and fresh ideas about how “church” can be shaped…all this ties into what is now before us.

What we are dreaming of is a creative community, a collective that is geared toward nurturing and enabling the arts. This could take many forms and express itself in multiple ways; but what we’re currently mulling over is eventually having a space devoted to various artistic efforts, including art shows, live music venues, classes of different sorts, and hopefully even a place for people to just hang out, study, read, eat, drink, talk, or practice their art. This could be a set of store fronts, and even include several functioning businesses. The possibilities are pretty much endless as to how it could look.

But for us, the key ingredient, the heartbeat, is that for it to be a place where believers and non-believers can interact and function together in a non-threatening environment, gathered around a common interest: the arts.

It won’t be “a church”, although THE church (i.e., Christ-followers) will function within it.
It will not be “a ministry”, but ministry will happen within it.

We don’t want to start another “Christian” organization, another attempt to “Christianize” the arts. We don’t intend to hang a Christianese shingle over the door. What we do want to see is a community where people’s gifts are nurtured and encouraged, regardless of their creed; a place where Christ’s love is expressed naturally and sincerely, without all the labels attached, without agenda, person to person, through genuine relationship, as people work and interact and network together.

A place where the gospel is present in deed first, and in word second–lived out by Christ-followers who believe their lives are a bigger witness than their lips.

And…we want it to be a community where some amazing creativity happens!

If what I’m saying sounds a bit ambiguous, it’s because it is difficult to explain or describe something that really has no model, no prototype. Plus, if I’ve learned anything the past few years, it is that we need to let vision be flexible and pliable–because we only know in part. God is revealing this a little at at time.

And one more thing…we also realize that creative community is not something we can just “start”–it is something that needs to be born. Something living, not something invented. Something God breathes into existence.

So rather than go launch some named organization and try to get people to join it…we need to let it form by doing what we do. We’ll name it later. 🙂

To be continued…the BIG stuff is coming up…