As many of us are, I am called to more than one Mountain of influence. This interaction I believe is by God's design to promote cooperation and coordination in how we not just steward the Mountains but also how we value them. Many parts but One body, some more or less honorable but all important and vital.

When God asked me to take on the role of leadership of a group of people here in Savannah, He gave me four specific mandates: Raise and Steward a Prophetic House, Fight Against Human Trafficking, Raise Up a Mission Sending Center, and Work to Return the Creative Arts to the Kingdom of God. All of these are currently in process along with the standard pastoral care items within our fellowship. However, returning the Creative Arts to the Kingdom is the most challenging for me because it requires not just a program or emotional plea to gather interest or momentum. The shift isn't as simple as hanging a piece of prophetic art or a new instrument to the praise team. It is about reshaping three entire mindsets regarding the arts. So, I started a ministry called "CREATED 2B CREATIVE".

The fist mindset that must be addressed is in the church and how it disowned God's Creative revelation in others. How it abandoned and rejected so many forms of artistic expression over the generations. God's very fist revelation of Himself to mankind was that He is creative, and as His image bearers so are we. (Gen. 1- "In the beginning God created") 

Through the corruption of our own nature and the influences of the enemy the church began to confuse personal piety and holiness with stoic rituals, muted colors, and function only ideas. So, the mindset that our God is not just creative but that He expects His children to be creative as well must be reinstalled into the hearts and minds of the church. This is not limited to just painting, sculptures, song and dance, but also in the making of new things that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. All the while we are to keep our creative activities within the same nature and character of God in every aspect.

The second mindset is correcting the drift of the church which embraced overindulgent opulence and ceremony in houses of worship, much of that was provided by extorting the people.  This practice created oppression and bitterness from the people and especially those outside the church who struggled and starved as churches were gold plated and elaborately decorated. Many saw the church leaders using vast resources to embellish buildings and clergy as the people were asked and often forced to suffer and sacrifice.  The house of God should reflect His beauty and glory, but it should also demonstrate His love, mercy, and compassion which would not oppress the weak or poor in the process.

The third mindset that must also be addressed is the proper understanding of gifting and calling. God has endowed every person with purpose and the gifts to succeed in that purpose, which is to bring Him glory and honor. Our fallen nature and the false instructions we have received over the years have many believing that their desire to be creative is sourced from the enemy (the devil). Thinking there is no room for their creative attributes within the church or even the life of a believer, so they choose to express them elsewhere and often they are exploited by satan and other people. 

With these three shifts in mind we determined that the basis of the ministry "Created 2B Creative" is to restore the creative character and nature of God among His people in ways that do not oppress or manipulate others and that glorify Him always. 

We have been working to achieve this goal in many ways. We began a teaching series inside our fellowship about the creative nature and character of God. We then invited a team led by Theresa Dedman from Bethel church in Redding California to facilitate a conference that was open to any and all about God's creative design in each person. This team held sessions on many forms of creative expressions, helped us understand our own giftings and develop skills. We also demonstrated how the creative nature of God works alongside the prophetic gifts to introduce people to the love and hope of the Father through Jesus Christ. We encourage our worship teams to write their own music so they can express God's heart for our specific house and region. We encourage budding artists to try or participate in prophetic art during services as young as 7-8 years of age. We help those who have a heart for physical expression to flag or dance both spontaneously and in organized and practiced fashion. We reach out to the local arts university to let those who are attending understand that we do not see their gifts and talents as evil. We have more opportunities than we have personal to participate but we are continually praying that God would send artists/creatives in as laborers so we can continue in this harvest field not just for the souls of men and women but to redeem their gifts and calls, as those who were "Created 2B Creative".