Every month there will be 3 opportunities for you to participate and engage your art-brain with like minded individuals.
One is a focused study and Vineyard art group gathering-this will be held Thursday nights(the 3rd of the month)denoted AG below.
The second is somewhat of the experiential side: and varies in the date, but will more likely be on Saturdays. We'll select an activity that is being put on in the community and after attending the event/show/reading etc, we'll have some coffee/tea/water and discuss the experience/art/event and our thoughts and reactions.
Thirdly, the worship nights, occur on Fridays at Fat Trees Studio as well(except this good friday coming up) and are a chance to worship and soak, as well as get some awesome time with God to brainstorm and be inspired. denoted as WN below.
Here is the schedule for the next few months. Some of the special events are yet to be determined.
Spring Calendar
March | Thursday the 20th 6:45 pm AG at Fat Trees Studio:6th + 6th
March | Friday the 21st 7-9 pm WN church office-Good Friday Evening of Reflection
March | 28th or 29th TBA Lord of the Rings multimedia concert / or photography exhibit at the CCP
April | Friday the 11th 7-9 pm WN @ FT Studio: Bowing before God the Holy One
April | Thursday the 17th 6:45 pm AG at Fat Trees Studio:6th + 6th
April | TBA
May | Friday the 9th 7-9 pm WN at Fat Trees Studio : Living as Sons and Daughters of God the Father
May | Thursday the 15th 6:45 pm AG at Fat Trees Studio : 6th + 6th
May | TBA
June | Summer Break for Worship Nights
June | Thursday the 19 6:45 pm AG at Fat Trees Studio : 6th + 6th
June | 15 Saturday 5-7 pm Artswalk, downtown gallery openings
Friday, March 14, 2008
imagineNATION
Hello All you creative folks! (LILLY DARLING here)
I'm pasting in an article that Teresa Smith forwarded to me, it is by an artist that I've really enjoyed-mostly she is singer/songwriter/leader of dance and art worship gatherings, and it really got me thinking. Thinking about our role as those who stretch our imaginations-and as we do so towards Heaven's Kingdom, we collectively pull it closer to us, and engage it into reality-AWESOME!. And at the same time - we can't possibly fathom the hugeness of it all... Thus bringing me to the title or perhaps group name idea #342?
:)
_________________________________________
JoAnn McFatter:
"The Lost ART of CREATIVITY--We are Dawning on an Age of Creativity Never Seen Before"
"The Lost Art of Creativity." A bit of a play on words, granted, but tragically real is this state of affairs. Unfortunately, we as Christians have let that part of us die or, at the very least, lie dormant and/or suppressed in the recesses of who we are. We've forgotten Whose Image we are created in--the Creator, Himself!
"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27
Men and women alike are born with genuine creativity in our DNA from the very beginning. Children are very creative as we have all observed. It takes a few years for us to beat it down into submission, never to be seen again for some of us. Studies with children have been done--following them through their school years and testing them every couple of years. At the beginning ages of two and three years old, they ALL test out at "creative genius," but by the age of eighteen, only one percent remain in that category. Again, our Greek-minded school system has squeezed our natural, God-given creative tendencies right out of us, which caused us to fit a mold that somebody, somewhere decided was "the norm."
The day we are born from our mother's womb, we are just nine months from being separated with God in the Spirit, so that experience is still fresh in us. The memory of it is slowly drawn from us by the ideas and thoughts of an earthly realm that are presented to us by well-intentioned people. Nonetheless, the understanding we had is suffocated and the voice of God is smothered. These days--creativity truly is a lost art.
Our Imagination Can Become Reality
I want to bring our attention to the influence this has had on our "ability" to grasp the supernatural and to even have faith for believing. We live in a "need to see it to believe it" society. Sometimes we don't even believe when we see, because we've been tricked too many times and we find it difficult to trust. Of course I believe in testing the spirits, as we are told to do in Scripture, but that is not what I'm referring to here. In the Christian world, we have been told to stay away from fantasy, which I agree with, but we've stayed SO far away that we've lost our ability to even receive a thought from God in our mind's eye--our imagination. Imagination does not have to be a bad thing. It can be used for good or evil just as any other ability we have.
Our imagination is engaged in faith for the supernatural. Are we going to believe for that thing we cannot yet see? Are we going to imagine that thing we are pressing into with faith, believing it? Our faith causes an image to form in our imagination. We come into agreement with God and He causes our imagination to see what He says is real. It is something yet to be, at least in the physical realm, though in God's mind it already is. To be or not to be, truly is the question being posed to us by faith, itself! We can agree with what God is telling/showing us, and thereby co-labor with Him to bring it to pass.
When we speak of imagination, we speak of the future as in something we are getting an image of, that has not yet taken shape or form in this physical realm. If it already has, then it is considered knowledge. It's already a done deal. If it has not occurred, not yet taken shape, it still lies within the imagination. These are images that we hope will move from the realm of possibility to the physical reality, having substance, but is still waiting in the future.
Just as knowledge speaks of the past, revelation speaks of the present--the now--something being realized at this moment. Once it is realized it becomes knowledge; the three stages being knowledge (past), revelation (present), and imagination, (future). But it takes agreeing with the thing as God sees it in our own imagination to believe for a thing. In fact, I think you could say it takes imagination to please God! As bold as this may sound, Scripture is telling us just that:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:1, 6
If you hope for something it is not yet seen, so you can only imagine it in your mind as you agree with what the Spirit of God is inspiring you toward. In exercising your faith for it, you will see the substance of it within your mind and spirit before it takes form in the physical realm. You agree with it in the Spirit before it takes place in the natural. We participate in bringing something forth as a co-laborer with God. We help to give it substance in this "touch it, feel it" realm we live in just by coming into agreement with what we are seeing. It happens as we give ourselves to the revelation He is releasing to us.
The Creator is Releasing Creativity
Yes, God is the only One who can create on His own, without any assistance, but He has invited us--and it pleases Him, evidently--to have us join with Him in this endeavor. He says:
"That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Anything that has been or will be is already in Him. It's just that some of it has been given substance, as is the above Scripture references, and some of it has not--as of yet. But He tells us it will be:
"Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it?" Isaiah 43:19
He even goes so far as to tell us we cannot even imagine what is locked up in His heart for us to enter into with Him. It remains only in His understanding, as of yet.
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those that love Him." I Corinthians 2:9
He has invited us to participate with Him in all of this and is just waiting to release the new to us and through us. Our problem is that we are so prone to taking a God-inspired idea or thought, sifting it through our own limited mindsets, and turning it right back into an old familiar thing. It's the typical, "starting out in the Spirit and ending up in the flesh" syndrome that we so easily fall into. We aren't opening ourselves or our imaginations to His revelation as it comes to us. Instead, we reshape it within OUR understanding, instead of just believing and agreeing exactly with what He has said. If we just let the Word of God permeate our imagination and would come into agreement with THAT, we would see so much more.
Let us say, "God, help us all to open up what is left of our shriveled up imaginations to be filled with the Rhema of Your creative Word!" We've shied away from it for so long. But we are at the dawning of an age of creativity such as we've never seen before, for it will be Holy Spirit driven.
God wants to overshadow us with that God-seed idea. His treasury room in Heaven is FULL, waiting to be accessed by you! There are so many different things such as books, paintings, inventions, architecture, business strategies, patents, music--the list goes on and on--just waiting for ones who will open their mind and spirits to receive it from Him.
The creativity is above all that we have seen or heard up to this point in history. He's saved the best till last--or maybe it just took us this long to be able to tap into what He has wanted to release all along. Either way, it's there for us now. It's a "stretch out your tent pegs" moment in time. Allow your imagination to be filled with the creativity of God that was in us in the very beginning, before we got reprogrammed by man.
That is the invitation to us all--to stand with God and allow Him to hover over us with His Divine Imagination, imparting to and igniting our imagination in order that we might give substance to what is in the mind of God. Even that we might give substance here on earth to something that is in that treasury room in Heaven.
I'm pasting in an article that Teresa Smith forwarded to me, it is by an artist that I've really enjoyed-mostly she is singer/songwriter/leader of dance and art worship gatherings, and it really got me thinking. Thinking about our role as those who stretch our imaginations-and as we do so towards Heaven's Kingdom, we collectively pull it closer to us, and engage it into reality-AWESOME!. And at the same time - we can't possibly fathom the hugeness of it all... Thus bringing me to the title or perhaps group name idea #342?
:)
_________________________________________
JoAnn McFatter:
"The Lost ART of CREATIVITY--We are Dawning on an Age of Creativity Never Seen Before"
"The Lost Art of Creativity." A bit of a play on words, granted, but tragically real is this state of affairs. Unfortunately, we as Christians have let that part of us die or, at the very least, lie dormant and/or suppressed in the recesses of who we are. We've forgotten Whose Image we are created in--the Creator, Himself!
"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27
Men and women alike are born with genuine creativity in our DNA from the very beginning. Children are very creative as we have all observed. It takes a few years for us to beat it down into submission, never to be seen again for some of us. Studies with children have been done--following them through their school years and testing them every couple of years. At the beginning ages of two and three years old, they ALL test out at "creative genius," but by the age of eighteen, only one percent remain in that category. Again, our Greek-minded school system has squeezed our natural, God-given creative tendencies right out of us, which caused us to fit a mold that somebody, somewhere decided was "the norm."
The day we are born from our mother's womb, we are just nine months from being separated with God in the Spirit, so that experience is still fresh in us. The memory of it is slowly drawn from us by the ideas and thoughts of an earthly realm that are presented to us by well-intentioned people. Nonetheless, the understanding we had is suffocated and the voice of God is smothered. These days--creativity truly is a lost art.
Our Imagination Can Become Reality
I want to bring our attention to the influence this has had on our "ability" to grasp the supernatural and to even have faith for believing. We live in a "need to see it to believe it" society. Sometimes we don't even believe when we see, because we've been tricked too many times and we find it difficult to trust. Of course I believe in testing the spirits, as we are told to do in Scripture, but that is not what I'm referring to here. In the Christian world, we have been told to stay away from fantasy, which I agree with, but we've stayed SO far away that we've lost our ability to even receive a thought from God in our mind's eye--our imagination. Imagination does not have to be a bad thing. It can be used for good or evil just as any other ability we have.
Our imagination is engaged in faith for the supernatural. Are we going to believe for that thing we cannot yet see? Are we going to imagine that thing we are pressing into with faith, believing it? Our faith causes an image to form in our imagination. We come into agreement with God and He causes our imagination to see what He says is real. It is something yet to be, at least in the physical realm, though in God's mind it already is. To be or not to be, truly is the question being posed to us by faith, itself! We can agree with what God is telling/showing us, and thereby co-labor with Him to bring it to pass.
When we speak of imagination, we speak of the future as in something we are getting an image of, that has not yet taken shape or form in this physical realm. If it already has, then it is considered knowledge. It's already a done deal. If it has not occurred, not yet taken shape, it still lies within the imagination. These are images that we hope will move from the realm of possibility to the physical reality, having substance, but is still waiting in the future.
Just as knowledge speaks of the past, revelation speaks of the present--the now--something being realized at this moment. Once it is realized it becomes knowledge; the three stages being knowledge (past), revelation (present), and imagination, (future). But it takes agreeing with the thing as God sees it in our own imagination to believe for a thing. In fact, I think you could say it takes imagination to please God! As bold as this may sound, Scripture is telling us just that:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:1, 6
If you hope for something it is not yet seen, so you can only imagine it in your mind as you agree with what the Spirit of God is inspiring you toward. In exercising your faith for it, you will see the substance of it within your mind and spirit before it takes form in the physical realm. You agree with it in the Spirit before it takes place in the natural. We participate in bringing something forth as a co-laborer with God. We help to give it substance in this "touch it, feel it" realm we live in just by coming into agreement with what we are seeing. It happens as we give ourselves to the revelation He is releasing to us.
The Creator is Releasing Creativity
Yes, God is the only One who can create on His own, without any assistance, but He has invited us--and it pleases Him, evidently--to have us join with Him in this endeavor. He says:
"That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Anything that has been or will be is already in Him. It's just that some of it has been given substance, as is the above Scripture references, and some of it has not--as of yet. But He tells us it will be:
"Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it?" Isaiah 43:19
He even goes so far as to tell us we cannot even imagine what is locked up in His heart for us to enter into with Him. It remains only in His understanding, as of yet.
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those that love Him." I Corinthians 2:9
He has invited us to participate with Him in all of this and is just waiting to release the new to us and through us. Our problem is that we are so prone to taking a God-inspired idea or thought, sifting it through our own limited mindsets, and turning it right back into an old familiar thing. It's the typical, "starting out in the Spirit and ending up in the flesh" syndrome that we so easily fall into. We aren't opening ourselves or our imaginations to His revelation as it comes to us. Instead, we reshape it within OUR understanding, instead of just believing and agreeing exactly with what He has said. If we just let the Word of God permeate our imagination and would come into agreement with THAT, we would see so much more.
Let us say, "God, help us all to open up what is left of our shriveled up imaginations to be filled with the Rhema of Your creative Word!" We've shied away from it for so long. But we are at the dawning of an age of creativity such as we've never seen before, for it will be Holy Spirit driven.
God wants to overshadow us with that God-seed idea. His treasury room in Heaven is FULL, waiting to be accessed by you! There are so many different things such as books, paintings, inventions, architecture, business strategies, patents, music--the list goes on and on--just waiting for ones who will open their mind and spirits to receive it from Him.
The creativity is above all that we have seen or heard up to this point in history. He's saved the best till last--or maybe it just took us this long to be able to tap into what He has wanted to release all along. Either way, it's there for us now. It's a "stretch out your tent pegs" moment in time. Allow your imagination to be filled with the creativity of God that was in us in the very beginning, before we got reprogrammed by man.
That is the invitation to us all--to stand with God and allow Him to hover over us with His Divine Imagination, imparting to and igniting our imagination in order that we might give substance to what is in the mind of God. Even that we might give substance here on earth to something that is in that treasury room in Heaven.
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