For eight years I had the same summer job as a counselor at a Christian theatre summer camp. Over the course of my time there, I worked with over 5,000 students aging from 8-18. Through acting, singing, dancing, and playing games, I did my best to love them and hopefully teach them about faith in Jesus. I now realize that I learned way more from them than they learned from me. 

Jesus talks about having a child-like faith. This was a phrase I never really understood until I started really spending time around children, listening to them, and seeing the way they live their lives. The inhibitions we carry around as adults are rarely found in the heart of a child. They live their lives in a different way, a more authentic way that I think stands as a powerful example of what faith in Jesus really looks like. These kids have so much to teach us, we just need to listen.

In this book, I tell sixteen different stories from camp and unpack how Jesus revealed Himself to me through each experience. In the end, my prayer is that the children in these stories would teach you just as much as they taught me over the last eight years. I pray that you might gain a renewed vision for what authentic faith in Jesus looks like in today's world.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you ‘re aware that Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, Noah, was released nationwide yesterday. You’re also probably aware that it has been the most controversial film release among believers since The Passion of the Christ came to the screen in 2004. Many evangelicals have made the choice to boycott the film for several different reasons. I think this is a huge mistake. I believe every Christian should be rushing to the theater this year, especially to see movies like Noah and Exodus. Here’s why:

1. Because you already do
“I will not support this film because it’s directed by an atheist.” This has been a popular argument this weekend among many believers. Yet many of these same Christians have seen and praised such films as, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Lawrence of Arabia, Rocky, and the majority of Disney films, all of which were directed by men and women who were either atheist, agnostic, or subscribers to a belief system other than Christianity.

The reality is, we as Christians often check our morality at the door when we go to theater. But all of a sudden when a film is labeled “religious” “Christian” or “biblical” in any way, we grab our Bible’s ready to pick apart every last moment like Ebert and Roper having a bad day. This is something I’ve grown incredibly tired of, because I think there is such a strong and fruitful alternative.

2. Because people are talking, and we need to listen
Many Christians may feel that they are “standing firm in the faith” by boycotting films like Noah. I, however, don’t see this as anything but a wasted opportunity. In a world that grows increasingly “anti-God”, how often do we find a natively biblical story at the center of the cultural conversation?

And our reaction is to judge the film before even seeing it, thus eliminating ourselves from the conversation entirely? How is this helpful to anyone?

We as Christians will never be able to gain any sort of influence in this world until we set down our pride and educate ourselves on what’s going on in our culture. Being “not of this world” does not mean ignoring this world. We still must be in the world if we truly wish to have a profound effect on the world for Jesus.

3. Because God is bigger
True, our world grows ever ‘secular’ by the day, but our world and its people, regardless of religious affiliation, are also constantly seeking truth.

Is our view of God so small that we think His name must be explicitly stated and preached in order for Him to work through a piece of art?

God’s truth is made clear in His word, but it is also expressed through His children and the stories we tell. Stories of love, hope, peace, trust, redemption, and grace are all around us in books, on television, and on the big screen. God is in and working through those stories, even if His name is not on the marquee or in the script.

People constantly recognize with these stories because they speak to something we long for in our hearts. They speak to a gap that needs to be bridged, a need that we’ve always had. They speak to our need for truth. That truth that we seek, that image of love from that film, that picture of grace in that novel, God is in that. And while we may not realize it’s Him right away, I believe God is powerful enough to reveal to each and every heart that in is indeed Him and His Son Jesus that we’ve been searching for all along. Let us as Christians stop nit-picking morality and begin seeking truth. Let us support those stories. Because where the truth of God is expressed, His name, and the glory of His name cannot be far behind.

Vitally creative people have the ability to see the world as it actually is, and therefore, how it’s going to be. For our purposes, we’ll call this vision. Creatives have vision. What transforms a creative person into a truly great artist is giving a voice to that vision. This is a massive responsibility.

In Biblical times, it was the prophets who had vision. God gave Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, Habakkuk, and many other men and women the ability to see their world as it actually was and what it was to become. The prophet’s job, or calling, was to give voice to that reality in the hopes of steering their community back onto the right path. The problem was, and is, that most people have a hard time with reality, especially when that reality reveals some ugliness or deficiency within their own life. Because of this, the prophet’s voice wasn’t often a popular one. In fact, many of these men and women were put to death by stoning, sawed in two, or killed with swords. (Hebrews 11:37) Obviously the Israelites had never heard of, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

So why? Why would these prophets continue to give voice to their vision? Why couldn’t they just shut their mouths? It’s the same reason the innovative creators of tomorrow won’t shut their mouths. Great artists understand, like the prophets did, that they have an incredible responsibility to give voice to their vision, no matter what the cost. If not, then who will lead us toward progress? If the choice few who have the necessary vision to see a brighter future do not step up and take that responsibility seriously, then I believe we are doomed to a future that looks eerily similar to the dark days described in the Bible.

If your creativity has given you vision, then the world is waiting for you. We are waiting for you to give voice to your vision through story, technology, design, or whatever your art may be. We are waiting for you to usher us into the future. I promise we won’t stone you.

The mark of a good team is not how well they gel together, but how they react and treat one another during times of conflict. Whether it’s creative differences, missed deadlines, or clashing personality types, things can often get pretty rocky during collaboration. Among weaker teams, these difficult discussions are a breeding ground for hurt feelings and broken trust. For strong teams though, these conversations are the actually the greatest opportunity to develop trust. Clearly, we much prefer the latter to the former, but how do we get there? How can we capture these awkward moments as a way to develop trust rather than break it?

Acknowledge everyone’s effort.

Taking responsibility for a personal miscue is hard. Admitting that you were hurt by the outcome of someone else’s miscue is not any easier. No matter what role you play in the conversation, don’t let someone’s apology, confession, or admittance of hurt be swept under the rug. These are big risks that must be acknowledged and encouraged. Letting someone know that they’ve been heard makes them feel valued, which ultimately increases trust.

Don’t mistake hurtful comments for “honesty”.
Honesty is not an excuse to say whatever we want. Honesty within collaboration is most effective when the speaker places greater importance on the hearers’ improvement than on their own vengeful satisfaction. It’s the difference between selfish and generous honesty. Generous honesty builds trust, selfish honesty build our ego, which always tears trust down.

Vulnerability doesn’t make you weak. (As long as everyone else is also being vulnerable)
I see vulnerability as “the openness to being affected by…” Taking off your emotional armor and exposing yourself can be very scary. It’s a lot less scary if everyone else is joining you though. Strangely enough, there is greater trust in a room full of naked people than in one naked person among a hundred business suits*.

‘We’ not ‘I’
This step encapsulates all the others. The strongest teams have a ‘we’ mentality over an ‘I’ mentality. Everyone on the teams works not for themselves and their own egos, but for the betterment of the project as a whole. A ‘we’ mentality is the biggest key to getting through those tough conversations, building trust within them, and getting back to the work of vital creation.

*Please not that I am not actually advocating fully note collaboration.

Need a to-do list? As the popular saying goes, “There’s an app for that.” Actually, there are over two thousand apps for that. Type it into the app store and find out for yourself. Everyone seems to need a to-do list today, including me. If you look at the blog post that precedes this one, you will see that I myself am a proponent of making to-do lists. However, I don’t think it’s the only list we need to be making if we want to create at a high level and do out best work.

No matter what industry you’re in it’s important to clearly lay out what you’re going to do, but I’ve also learned that oftentimes it’s just as important to lay out what you’re not going to do. I call this my “Not-To-Do List.”

The “Not-To-Do List” sets up necessary boundaries in order for you and your team to create sacred space. Sacred space is a place where creative inspiration and ideas are free to flow without the threat of distraction. For example, when I sit down to write a blog post I do not eat, shower, or check social media until I’ve finished.  As anyone who has ever tried to write for a living knows, we find any excuse we can to keep us from actually sitting down and doing the hard work of creation. Deciding beforehand what you are not allowed to do helps to eliminate the possibility for distraction to creep in. It also acts as a nice reward once you’re finished, especially the shower.

This is true for teams as well. Every week I send out a weekly update in the form of an e-mail to our team at The Anima Series. One of the rules the team has for responding to these emails is that all responses must be relevant to the topics proposed in the original e-mail. New topics may only be introduced in a new e-mail thread, or sent to me separately to be brought up the next week. This is not an attempt for me to have complete control the conversation as all powerful leader and dictator, this is to ensure our conversation stays focused and accomplishes what needs to be done.

Sometimes you and your team need to know what not to do as much as you need to know what to do.

I don’t say this to brag, but among my friends I am known as the one who is “overly self-disciplined and productive.” You’ll notice that the previous quote is not phrased as a compliment. That’s because my friends don’t mean it as a compliment. My desire to be as productive with my time as possible often distracts me from things like having fun, and can often lead me down the road towards burn out.

I think most of us exist on one side of this scale or the other. Either you’re like me, highly productive but lacking in relaxation, or you’re you can’t get work done to save your life but you have a lot of fun not doing it.

How then do we discover a life of balance? How do we love our work time, love our playtime, avoid burnout, but still get things done?

After much reflection in recent months, I’ve discovered a system that seems to be working for me. This process may sound obvious but I encourage you to try it. These three steps have opened me up and allowed to experience inspiration, creativity, and joy each and every day.

Step One: COLLECT
This is the process of taking in information. Each morning I spend two hours reading my Bible, catching up on blogs I follow, and watching numerous interviews with people who inspire me. This collecting of information is vital to the creative process. It serves as a jump start to our brains. This is where we learn from the experience of others and  by their ideas. If two hours is too much for your schedule, that’s fine. Try fifteen minutes. The amount of time doesn’t matter, what matters is the level of engagement and openness to be inspired.

Step two: CREATE
Now that our head is filled with ideas, it’s time to do the work. My recommendation is to make a to-do list of no more than four tasks on a sticky note. If your tasks are truly vital and creative, then four should be plenty to accomplish in a day. The sticky note is just a visual thing. Four tasks on a regular sheet of paper looks like you’re a slacker, but a sticky note make your day feel just full enough. Then set aside time, whether it’s three hours or thirty minutes, where you put away all distractions, and begin to work through the list. Start at the top and do not move on until the previous task is completed.

Step three: CHILL
This is the last thing you do before going to bed at night. Choose an activity that’s mindless, but completely enjoyable. For me, this is watching Pokémon on Netflix, playing my PS3, or having dessert with a friend while watching late night Sports Center. The idea here is to forget about work completely and relax. Remember, the point of these three steps is not to slave through your work all day so that you can enjoy yourself at night; the point is to achieve balance in your creative life so that all three steps are enjoyable.

Harnessing the power of creativity, productivity, inspiration, and joy is not as difficult as it sounds. Vital creatives do it everyday, and you will need to as well if you want to do your best work and live your best life.

Do you remember at the 2010 Winter Olympics when Shaun White was the undisputed king of snowboarding? In the halfpipe finals his first run earned a score of 46.8, which was high enough to secure a gold medal without even needing a second run. White opted to go for it anyway. What most people thought would be a “victory lap” turned into a historical moment.

Nearing the end of yet another flawless ride down the pipe, White pulled out a move no one had ever seen before, including himself. White’s McTwist 1260, which he later named ‘The Tomahawk’, left the crowd absolutely speechless. When asked about it, White admitted that he had never actually done the move in competition before, only in practice. Regardless, he had stuck the landing and earned a score of 48.4, which only increased his margin of victory. White took home the gold and the status of Olympic legend.

The greatest athletes push their particular sport beyond the point of athletics. Watching Shaun White ride the pipe, Michael Jordan shoot a jump shot, or Peyton Manning throw a touchdown pass is not just athletic, they make it an art. There is a certain precision and beauty to everything they do. They control the game like a seasoned painter brushing and dabbing at a canvas. Everything bends to their will. They’ve honed their craft to the point where now it’s not only mechanical, it’s actually a form of expression. It’s a McTwist 1260.

The professional athlete takes what is athletic and makes it artistic.

For the professional artist, I would argue that the exact opposite is true. There are many people who consider themselves artists because they have the ability to draw, write, or play music. Professional artistry is often more about endurance than ability though. Writing a series or great novels, performing eight shows a week, or doing a forty city album tour is much more athletic than it is artistic. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. The professional artist trains her creative muscles just as an offensive lineman does reps on a bench press. She knows that she must be able to execute at a high level, even when the magical creativity fairy is not whispering in her ear. The picture still needs to be taken. The chapter still needs to be finished. The song still needs to be sung.

The professional artist takes what is artistic and makes it athletic. 

Saturday was not a great day for me. Work was not going well. My personal life was a bit of a mess. Even my go-to, sure-fire way of improving my mood, writing, failed. I sat in a café for over two hours and couldn’t think of a thing to type. I resorted to sulking. Then I felt guilty for sulking. There are people in this world with real problems you idiot! I was caught in the vicious cycle professionally referred to as “a bad day.”

Luckily, Saturday only lasts twenty-four hours, and this particular cycle of hours was coming to a close. I finished my evening performance and with my book in hand raced to the subway. The homestretch. As I searched the train car to find a seat, I noticed someone I worked with in the show had chosen the same car. She noticed me as well and quickly made her way over to my side of the car. In case you couldn’t guess, I was not really in the mood for friendly conversation.

Over the next fifteen minutes however, something very surprising happened. My co-worker began to ask me about the book I was reading. I reluctantly told her it was about goal setting and productivity. This led to more questions about my life, which inevitably led to my passion for writing/blogging. Before I knew it, I was giving her my full on testimony of faith. I thought I should balance out the conversation a bit by asking her about herself, but she really left no gaps for me. Every new thing I said seemed to surprise and intrigue her further.

Another ten minutes later I arrived home and instead of going straight to sleep like I had planned I immediately grabbed my laptop and began furiously writing. I had spent two hours in a café earlier that day staring at a blank cursor and now all of a sudden I couldn’t get to sleep because my mind was sparking so intensely. How does this happen?

It may sound narcissistic, but one of the quickest ways to get inspired is to talk about your passions and share you story with somebody new. Seeing the surprised and excited reactions of others reminds us that what we’re doing, our art, is interesting after all. We grow so accustom to our talents that we sometimes forget what makes us special.

Vitally creative people share their passions liberally with others. Not so people will be impressed, but as a reminder that what we do is not only worthwhile, but it actually has the power to inspire people.

The best writers write books that they themselves would want to read. The same goes to musicians, filmmakers, photographers, graphic designers, web developers, and anyone and everyone who uses their brainpower to create some sort of new, artistic content or product.  If you wouldn’t read it, buy it, or listen to it, what makes you think other people will? That’s the difference between the artist and the door-to-door knife salesman.

The salesman doesn’t care about the set of knives he pedals. In fact, that salesman has never used or even touched the set outside of a sales pitch. He would never buy these knives and he knows it, but he tries to sell them anyway because that’s what he’s been given by his supplier. They think knives are popular. Everyone needs knives, right? The point here is that the knife salesman did not make the knife set. He had little to no hand in what he was given to sell, so he does his best to lie.

Don’t get me wrong, being a salesman is a fine profession. But some of us, perhaps those who choose to read a blog like this, are tired of pedaling someone else’s product. If that’s you, then there’s good news. You don’t have to be a door-to-door knife salesman.

As a creator, you are the maker of the masterpiece. You are the curator of the content. You are the peddler of your own product. The artist creates a new product that is all her own. She knows that if that product moves and inspires her, then she has a real chance of it doing the same to others. She knows this means that her content won’t be popular with everyone. Not everyone likes or is inspired by the same things she is. Popularity is not the point though. The point is to provide your specific audience or tribe with quality, engaging, and challenging content every time you create. If you write plays, write words that actors will be drooling to say. If you write classical music, write music that musicians will be dying to play. This is a necessary component of vital creativity.

Art. Science. Business. Sports. Medicine. At their core, these things are all about progress. Sure there are those who enter business for the money, art for the fame, sports for the trophies, and science for the…I don’t know, beakers. But what the truly great artists, athletes, doctors, and CEOs are most concerned with is progress.

The great artist is constantly pushing to challenge convention, advance his specific form, and have his voice heard in a whole new way.

The star athlete dreams of new, more effective ways of playing the game she loves so that the sport might become more competitive and exciting.

The executive knows that business cannot be conducted today the same way it was when his father was in charge of the company. He must adapt and change with the times.

The scientist runs thousands of experiments without ever finding the “right” answer. Her experiments have failed every time, but she has collected pages full of data, which is just as valuable to the research. She hasn’t yet succeeded, but she is inching her way closer every day.

The point of all this? If progress is the goal, then creativity is the starting line. Creativity is the root from which progress springs forth. No advancement has ever been made in the history of the world apart from the human mind first sparking some form of creativity. This may sound like an extremely generalized statement, but I believe it’s true.

If we want to see progress in our specific industries, if we want to be great, and do great things, then it’s time to get creative.