So I’m still slowly making my way through “New Way To Be Human” by Charlie Peacock. He’s completely slammed “Suburban American Christianity” so far - safety and security are not Kingdom values - cool. I think he still has some more points to make on it so I will hold off on that topic until I get done. However he does make a great distiction between the imagination and creativity. They are very different but we often interchange them incorrectly.

Imagination is the thing or ability to visualize things or events. Creativity is more about the act of creation. They can be related or occur separately. For example, someone that has lots of ideas but never acts on them or fleshes them out is imaginative but is not creative. Another person who orders a hover-craft that is assembled from ordinary household items (I always wanted one of those) and builds it is creative but not imaginative. See the difference?

I haven’t finished the chapter so I don’t know where he’s taking it, but it makes me think about how to foster more imagination in my kids, wife and myself - then have the follow through to be creative about it. It also makes me think about my music. Many times I have ideas that I don’t ever take the time to bring into existance. While other times I make music a certain way just because it’s a sound that I’ve heard before - not very imaginative. I think Mr. Peacock will probably go down the road of “there is not enough Godly imagination going on in ministry.” Every once in while a church will have a new idea and execute it, then every other church just emulates it - waiting for someone else to come up with a good idea to copy.

He makes the point that everyone, not just artists, has an imagination and like anything, your imagination can be used for either selfish gain or Kingdom gain. I encourage you to examine how you are using yours.