THoughts on Biblical Creative process

The way I see it the Biblical process for creativity in preaching is developed when the text, the culture, and the application of the text come together in an imaginative fashion.

In a diagram in might look like this:

(Text)=
(Culture)= (Creative Moment)
(Application)=

Each of the three areas have their particular constraints. The text as it was originally written is limited by the original intent of the author towards those who read it. We are limited by the culture the same way a fish is limited by water. Then the application presents constrints by remaining concrete is it's delivery.

These three constraints is what gives us the ability to be creative in our preaching. Text with application is dull and boring. Text and Culture is fun but like cotton candy, fun to eat but full of hot air. Culture with Application has no foundation to build on. You need all three to create an effective creative moment or message.

Questions:

How does this work with creative techniques?
What role does the human imagination have in this diagram?
What role does the Holy Spirit have?
How is creativity defined in this diagram?

Doctrine and Creativity, Part 2

Robert Smith illustrates in his book how we need to use modern metaphors for traditional theological words.

original Sin = addiction or sinner = hostage.

Jesus took the ancient text of the OT and used common terminology of his day to re-explain it.

Sheep, managers, housewife, rich people, poor people, religous people, and many more. Perhaps a creative exercise would be to compare theological words to common objects and see what we get. Compare these two lists.

Scantification Car
Justification Sears Tower
Sotierology (sp?) Child rearing
Pneumatology Internet

Perhaps if we allow our doctrine inform our metaphors and analogies we might explain God's word more effectively.

Creativity and Doctrinal Preaching, Part 1

These next few blogs will be comparing the creativity with Robert Smith's book, Doctrine That Dances.

One of the ideas in the book is that doctrine enforces and informs the truth boundaries to waht we preach. We can't just preach anything. We must preach truth. This can seem restraining to creativity at first becasue tobe creative you must think outside the box. At least tht's how the conventional thinking goes.

Actually, constraints play a large role in creativity. For example, Cirque de Soliel would not seem all that creative without the constraint of gravity during their performance. Another example would be sports. Sports haas all kinds of rules and regulations, and yet we see all kinds of creativity and expression during a sports event.

Doctrine works in the same manner with creativity. it's very existience it what helps us be creative. It gives us the truth to communicate and provides the constraints so creativity can exist. After all, it's hard to think outside the box without the box!