Planting seeds of a renewed culture

What you create matters and the power in sharing our work

Your creativity matters to God. 

What if the things we create — those 2 a.m. poems and holiday sketches, that idea you had on the tube, the photos you post on Instagram, and the tune you started humming to yourself in Tesco — are the seeds of a renewed culture? 

As Makoto Fujimura says “Culture is a garden to be cultivated.”¹ By the grace of God, we, as creators made in his image, are invited to that vital work of care and cultivation. Of planting seeds and pruning ancient trees; weeding and watering and enjoying this garden.

My friend Jack is a gardener and designer. He often talks about gardening as a direct expression of creating within the world that God has made. Of creating with the materials and beauty that God has first created. Gardening is a clear expression of our role as subcreators. Creating with God, to his vision in the world that he has made. If culture is a garden, we creators are undergardeners. Planting, creating and cultivating a culture. 

A culture where generosity and love are in abundance. Where there is opportunity, diversity and relationship. A culture that bears the fruit of Beauty, Truth and Goodness to be enjoyed by all. A culture that isn’t a minefield of competing ideas, of commodity and wealth. That isn’t an overgrazed wasteland of repetition and isolation. What if the things that you create are the seeds of an ecosystem of human flourishing where everyone has the opportunity to walk in the cool of the day with their Creator?

Walking with the Creator

What you create matters to God because it builds a relationship with him.

The poet and editor Christian Wiman writes that when we create we are “bringing eternity into one’s immediate consciousness”.² Our creativity is something that brings us closer to God. To create something is an expression of what it means to be made in God’s image. Of that unique relationship we each have with our Creator. 

Creativity is worship. 

When we create, we are living out of the identity that God gave us. We are expressing something, and there we are imagining. We are putting something out there. We are lifting up a voice saying something from ourselves to the world around us. We can glorify and praise God in our making. We can give something back to the one who gave us all. When we think of worship, we typically think of singing and music. That's because it's a creative expression. It's saying something as people. It's offering something up to God.

And creativity is prayer. 

It helps us to observe and be attentive. That's why when we bring creativity into prayer and into worship it brings us closer to God.  It builds our relationship with him through this opening of ourselves. It's a conversation; raw honesty. 

Thinking about the act of creating, Christian Wiman wrote that “we cease to be ourselves and become, paradoxically, more ourselves. Our souls.”³

When we do this in the secret place we share with God what's going on within us. Creating in prayer builds a relationship with God. And when we journey to this place, when we seek God in our moments of making and have the courage to honestly express ourselves, we find an incredible power in this. The things that we make, and the way that we create, feed the soul.

This is the role of the artist. To feed the soul. Fujimura talks about this as bringing “bouquets of flowers into a culture bereft of beauty.”⁴

Or, as we read in Ephesians 4: “Let each of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.”⁵

Our creativity unveils the Beauty, Truth and Goodness in the world. It reflects back these things that are God himself into a culture where this feels distant. 

“True creativity,” writes Trevor Hart, “is always a pursuit of the good which renders the self adjacent; it is an act of love.”⁶

When I think of the commandment to love God and love our neighbour, I’m reminded just how complete and powerful an obedience it is when we create from a place of prayer unveiling Beauty, Truth and Goodness. The pursuit of this is an act of love. It shows love to our Creator and love to others through generosity to come alongside others in this world. 

The things that we create matter as they give us a glimmer of their Creator. They matter as an outstretched hand offering Beauty, Truth, and Goodness in a fallen world that is craving hope and relationship. When we courageously create and generously share, we show love. 

It’s as we read in that beautiful commission in Isaiah 61:1-3:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn;

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;

that they may be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.⁷

Beauty, Truth and Goodness are things that are found in many moments of life. The hardship and suffering too. As creators, the things we make and share aspire towards these words from Isaiah. From the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, our creativity can be an act of love. Of hope, justice, comfort, mourning, gladness.

In her brilliant essay on beauty, my friend Brigid Beney wrote that “Christian understandings of beauty also hold space for the not perfect and pleasing, such as death and suffering. The creative process of making… can aid churches to support those struggling with a broken world.”⁸

God keeps choosing the use the works of faithful human-making to speak to and connect with his people. 

In the Bible we see it with the Tabernacle, the Temple, we can even see it with the Eucharist, the bread and the wine. And since the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, in countless words written, songs played, paintings and photographers, poems and performances that God has used as signposts and revelations of himself. As seeds of renewal planted as a garden in a world that desperately needs Jesus. 

I’m sure we can remember moments when we have been captivated by a painting or found a book so good we couldn’t put it down or watched a film and found ourselves crying. 

There’s something about creating things that we connect with on a deep and personal level. That is why we’re so excited for this next expo. Hundreds of people are going to be coming through the doors of that church just up the road. Every year that we’ve hosted this, we’ve seen people encounter God through the artwork on display. People who sat for hours in the church. People who prayed. Others started asking questions about life and faith for the first time. People with words from God and people encouraged to create and share their stories and start that journey to meeting God in the Secret Place. 

People are searching. They are hungry for something more. We live in a culture prevalent in anxiety, loneliness, fear and conflict. The artwork that we create for this exhibition can speak to this with honesty and authenticity, sharing the reality of our experiences and faith, gently unveiling the Beauty, Truth and Goodness to be found. 

You are an artist in the image of your Creator and what you create matters to him. 

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Sanctuary: a Creators Collective expo

Come Feb 22nd 2025, we’re filling Christ Church Spitalfields with all sorts of creative expressions of our faith, to open the doors for the day and share with the public what it means to be in, find, or relate to ‘Sanctuary’ as Christian.

The possibilities are endless! Be bold. Be courageous. Share with us your ideas or get in touch if you get involved.

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The Pursuit of Good Stuff

a spiritual habitat for creators

1. Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care

2. Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light

3. Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light

4. Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care

5. Ephesians 4:25 ESV

6. Trevor Hart, Making Good

7. Isaiah 61:1-3 ESV

8. Brigid Beney, To what extent does beauty matter to the church’s missional activity?