art – Becoming Fully Alive

15 Instagram Accounts To Follow

Michael — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 14:00:12 +0000

As a self-proclaimed “professional instagrammer” and aspiring Insta-Celeb, my Christian recommendations to you should be “sweeter than honey” to your mouth (Psalm 119:103)! Have a look through these 15 recommendations; they include worship, typography, humour and orthodox accounts. Feel free to comment below your favourite Christian insta-accounts to follow as well. (click photos to open up each insta account).

1. @pocketfuel

2. @bethelmusic

3. @exoduscry

4. @theworshipproject.co

5. @theorthodoxway

6. @hipscript

7. @churchfunny

8. @craftedby

9. @fightthenewdrug

10. @monkrock

11. @oliverjjgoddard

12. @judedias

13. @orthodoxtruth

14. @walkthesameofficial

15. @ifequip

Creativity: An Expression Of Freedom

Veronia — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 14:09:11 +0000

“Every Christian must be part artist. We craft lives of meaning through faith. And this means reaching out to engage those who differ while never losing appreciation for what sets us apart.”
-Father Andrew of Athos

I grew up thinking, you were either creative or you weren’t. I categorized myself as the latter since I couldn’t draw, write or produce drama. I spent most of my life detaching myself from anything that required creativity or imagination because to me that part of my brain just didn’t work.

We are the result of creation, and that means that He who fashioned us gave us the ability and the capacity to also create. We are all artists and poets, and I’ve come to learn that creativity is so much more than painting a portrait, writing a profoundly deep story or producing a moving film.

So what is creativity exactly?

Simply put, you.

It’s you.

It’s you in your daily interactions, in the way you interact with the stranger you meet, in the way you plan a trip to a new destination, the way you take on disappointments in life, the way you come up with an idea to improve your business’ efficiency or sales. It’s you in the way you carefully think out a recipe to make that perfect meal for the ones you love.

Beauty is in creativity.

Our sensitivity to beauty is but a glimpse of how man saw the world before corruption seeped into our very nature.

Understanding beauty is an important aspect when we create. Beauty is not static; it is not confined to any one person’s perception, but it is dynamic in the sense that it continues to develop. And when true beauty is fully cultivated it has the space to flourish in whatever direction it pleases.

Beauty is in the touch of love, in the healing words we can whisper to our neighbor and in how we have the ability to be woven into each other’s lives.

However, the most beautiful work of art is in the work of being made by Grace. It is in becoming the final tapestry of work yourself. In writing songs, you become the song itself, in painting a canvas you become a painting, all for the glory of the One who made you.

Creativity is our vocation.

“Being fashioned in His image means that we are also artists and poets, regardless of our vocation in life. We are artists in the way we love. We are poets in the way we pray. Everyone is an artist.”
-Jonathan Jackson

Creativity encompasses all that we as humans are able to achieve, craft and produce.

Every time we engage in anything then we are engaging in art. We are participating with the Creator Himself and we become fellow co-workers. Our responsibility as artists then is to lead others into a more profound meaning of their existence and ultimately to our collective purpose in life.

But what stops us from creating?

A threat to our creativity is our brokenness. We cannot be creative when we are wounded because we behave, act, think and feel based out of our own hurt. However, when we are in the process of healing, creativity flows freely.

Healing needs to be our companion and teacher, otherwise we roam the earth allowing our wounds to have the driver’s seat, blinding us from seeing our potential to create.

In denying that we are wounded, we deny ourselves of being human. Rather than believing that we have the capacity to become great we spend the rest of our lives thinking so low of ourselves, capping our growth.

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
-Edward de Bono

Creativity can also be threatened by cultural norms. We become entangled with cultural chains that do us harm. They tell us that we have to think in a certain way, follow certain career paths, have the same life goals, act in a certain way, and sadly enough, feel a certain way. We have becomes slaves to society.

It was people like Martin Luther King, J.R.R Tolkien, Steve Jobs who broke through cultural norms. In doing so they created beauty: they created a society welcoming all walks of life, a new world of fantasy that spoke so deeply to the human soul, and technology that echoes throughout the generations.

Friendships inspire creativity.

Friendships are a main ingredient to our creativeness. They allow us to bounce ideas off another and together produce wonder, beauty and awe. We shouldn’t live in isolation from those who encourage our creativity and imagination.

If we do, we end up living in our own cave, having no one to enrich our lives, we suffocate ourselves in our own unspoken words. We are paralyzed in our growth as we become ‘okay’ with the mundane life, with no new sense of adventure, no new flavors to taste in our mouths. We, therefore, cease to live, and in doing so we cease to create. We merely exist but are not alive.

Tolkien could not have completed his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, if it weren’t for the great encouragement he received from C. S. Lewis, and visa versa.

Like Tolkien needed Lewis, I am in need of you.

Freedom is the essence of creativity.

When we are perplexed by hints of splendor, we enter into a union with the ultimate Creator. This breaks our soul’s chains and awakens us to the immortal longing that resides in our heart and the soft whisper that cries out ‘be free and create’.

Be free my friend.

Be free and create.

Others around you are in need of your beauty and creativity.

“Whoever wants to become a Christian, must first become a poet.”
-Elder Porphyrios

(Photo by Manish Ray)

Where Healing Begins

BFA Team — Mon, 12 May 2014 20:19:01 +0000

This is an anonymous guest post.

Whenever I’m ill, I panic. Google search bar is opened and I start manically diagnosing myself…

Yet for most of my life I had the worst disease; a cancer growing daily, a hardened heart, blinded eyes, deaf ears, a head filled with distorted ideas, thoughts and images. I had the worst disease leading to death and I didn’t care.

The diagnosis; detachment from God.

Gradually, as with any disease, the symptoms build up.

I prayed everyday; an ‘Our Father’ was rushed before I went to bed ‘just in case God existed so I wouldn’t be condemned to hell’. I went to Church too, that made me feel like a good person – although bowing down my head for prayer was actually me power napping.

I was regularly speaking badly of the ones I say ‘I love’ – the ones I would compliment when I’d see…

…and tried and no surprise failed to find security in another person, making them my god…

…and conformed to what everyone else did and tried to mould myself and force the things my friends and the media said was fun to be the things I’d find fun too. And and and… the list continues. The sins covered me but I wasn’t ashamed. I was proud of them. I’d distanced myself from the God who was always there and still is. I didn’t need Him, I didn’t care about Him. I was spiritually dead.

But My God never died for the healthy. My God says;

“Why should you be beaten anymore?

Why do you persist in rebellion?

Your whole head is injured,

your whole heart afflicted.

From the sole of your foot to the top of your head

there is no soundness –

only wounds and bruises

and open sores,

not cleansed or bandaged

or soothed with oil.”

Where sin increased, grace increased even more. My God is a doctor like no other. To cleanse and heal me from the sin that had become embedded in me, He was bruised and wounded. There on His cross did Jesus display His power and strength. You see, the world defines power differently; it’s about being the best you can be at the expense of others, rising above others. God’s definition is to deny Himself and enter a broken world, to show them how to live, then be tortured and die to restore those who needed restoring but didn’t deserve such. He still continues to do so today, transforming people who are just existing to people who are living, the sick to the healthy.

But when a doctor gives a patient medicine, it is ultimately their responsibility to choose to take it and get better;

“I was sought by those who did not ask for Me;

I was found by those who did not seek Me.

I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’“

Jesus is always there, arms wide open, saying ‘here I am’ respecting our choice. He is ready for you to run to Him as you are in your filth and emptiness. He does not demand your lengthy prayers or your perfect church attendance first – just you.

He created you to love you.

In Him you find every need fulfilled and even more so; your desire for companionship, to be known and loved is only made complete in Him.

In Him you find a father holding your hand, carrying you throughout all your days, laughing with you and wiping your tears.

In Him you find richness, a kind that makes everything you once treasured appear worthless.

In Him you find hope, a kind that can laugh at the days to come, look forward to the future and even desire the inevitable death of the body because you know that’s when you will see your King and saviour all the more clearly.

Discover that for yourself.

I Choose Jesus. I Choose life.

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”

Deuteronomy 30:19