How To Unlock Creative Flows

The Tunes Of Jubile Creatives' Workshop is happening again in June. This is a monthly interactive session where we learn how to engage and influence the culture we live in using media as our tool of influence and impact. At the last edition in May, we considered the challenges christians face in getting involved in the transformation of our immediate society. You can download the pdf here.

This time we'll be looking at how we can access a steady flow of creativity for creating exceptional media content for our comedies, dramas, movies, songs, dance presentations, books and so on.

Date: June 8th and 9th 2013.
Time: 5pm (on both days)
Venue: The Youth Chapel, Methodist Church Nigeria, Agodi, Gate, Ibadan.
Details: 08170686445 | apostledavid@rampageoutreach.org | eyitope.lala@gmail.com
I've included a map for the venue for those unfamiliar with the place.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

The Map




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Cultural Change from the bottom up

I start today's post with this quote from a blog I stumbled upon in a Google search about christians changing culture. It goes like this:

In his book, To Change the World, James Davison Hunter asserts that many Christians have adopted a false theory for social change, believing that the majority belief determines the social norm. Therefore, change occurs when a majority adopts a belief that differs from the existing norm. The LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia argues that this faulty theory has led Christians to invest a large amount of energy in resources and strategies to effect cultural change that prove ineffective. 
http://truthseekerblog.com/2011/03/07/strategies-for-changing-culture/

I cannot but marvel at the wisdom the prince of this world uses to infiltrate the world with his own influence in the homosexual issue for example. He uses very simple steps in an effective strategy-

• Remove the *"yuck factor" in homosexuality. (The yuck factor is a belief that an intuitive negative response to a practice, idea or something should be interpreted as evidence of its evil or harmful character.) This has been done by placing homosexuality in a favourable light using movies, sitcoms, comedies and even children's cartoons.
• appeal to sympathy from fellow humans by presenting homosexuals as innocent victims of social, racial and religious bigotry. Something like the feelings of sympathy evoked in the fight against slave trade.

Slowly and steadily the majority opinions towards homosexuality are gradually eroding giving way to more liberal views even among believers. While all this is also as a result of the speed of light changes happening in our world today, there's a simple strategy that I see the devil using. Interestingly it's obvious the devil copied this from the Author and Finisher of our faith as God has always used a seed approach in building anything on the earth.  Unfortunately we Christians have tended to try to infiltrate the power structures to effect a societal change. While this is laudable and can be effective, we live in times when social change is now more in the hands of the "consumers" than the "sellers". 

Jesus NEVER used power structures to try to change society. He went for the core of society that was hurting and needing help and caused tremendous city-wide waves of change. Remember the Samaritan woman? Or the Gaderenes (ex)demoniac? A city policy was issued because of what Jesus did to that man. Jesus did not come as a senator but as a servant. He hated the religious bigotry of the Pharisees and repudiated their beliefs but he poured Himself into the society He was living in humility, love and kindness saving weddings, healing the sick, casting out demons, accepting the unloved into the fold and providing a (better) alternative path (lifestyle) to the already established and acceptable norms of the society.

Platforms already exist for us to bring the change our societies need. (I recently watched a  Youtube video, that has hit more than 20 million views in the space of four months!) In the light of this, I would like to personally invite you to a seminar/interactive workshop taking place this weekend where believers can learn better ways to infiltrate our world with the kingdom of God culture. Follow this link for more details!

Evangelizing Today's Youth

In continuance with the thoughts I started out with yesterday, I would like to focus on how to effectively evangelize this generation (and probably the next).

It is obvious that the views of each generation on God and what it means to be employed in His service differ, most times with very conflicting views. Each generation has its own revelation of God, different from that of the preceding generation. God is a trans-generational God-the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I believe there is a unique manifestation of God that is tied to every generation for the benefit of the world (Romans 8:19-22).

My point is that God would not reach each generation in the same way, so why should we think we can get results using the same methods that were used for us?

Have you observed that sharing tracts does not have the effect it had in the early 80s? Young people are not keen to listen to 2 hour messages. If a movie is not interesting, they'll dump it in seconds, even if you're teaching them important values. I would like to submit that anyone who doesn't change his style of "ministry" in this 21st Century would find that his impact is greatly diminished. Pastor Poju Oyemade recently said  that any pastor using Bishop Oyedepo's style of leadership in ministry today will not make much progress. Incidentally, Bishop Oyedepo's is pastor Poju's mentor. I would like to submit to you that for any person to effectively evangelize this generation, your style MUST change!

The devil understands this truth so well and he tailors his evangelical efforts to ensure that he catches the youth. For him (the devil), it doesn't matter if you fully understand what you are getting into. Just get in first. He uses what someone (my pastor and friend, Pastor Niyi) calls the mass market approach. Effectiveness in any dispensation is directly proportional to your understanding of the dynamics of that dispensation with emphasis on the technology and the people in that era. 

Evangelism is a lot like marketing and for it to be successful we must understand the terrain and understand the market. We must understand that

• Definitions have changed (gay no longer means happy)
• Indices of wealth have changed (Physical wealth vs Intellectual property Apple quoted as 2nd most expensive company globally).
• Technology has changed
• Perspectives have changed (How business is done, Social interactions powered by Social media networks, fashion trends i.e. lower waist-lines, lower neck-lines, etc)

AS PEOPLE CAUGHT IN THE MIDST OF THESECHANGING LANDSCAPES, 

WE MUST UNDERSTAND AND BE ESTABLISHED IN THE TIMELESS 

FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF GOD AND LOCATE INNOVATIVE 

& CREATIVE WAYS TO PRESENT THEM TO THE WORLD.

Some of today's post is an excerpt from a presentation at a monthly programme focused on empowering Christians to actively participate in media. Download the file here.

Exploring Creativity

One of the greatest challenges of the church over the years has been the ability to translate spiritual intangible to physical realities that the world can understand. It seems that for us to be able to communicate effectively with anyone that does not yet believe in Jesus, we must first confuse them. The more confused they are, the easier it is to get them into the kingdom. We seem to forget that at one time there were some things relating to God's kingdom that we did not understand.

As a result of our inability to accurately interprete these spiritual intangibilities, we give excuses. Here is one that is simply a classic.

Be blessed as you listen to the lyrics of our song and not the music. 

What?! Why call it a song when you all you want is for me to listen to the lyrics and not the music?
Our greatest job as believers utilizing media to advance the kingdom family of God is to interprete these "heavy" spiritual truths in language/expressions that everyone can understand. Let me cite a few examples

Alfa Sule -there's power in the name of Jesus

Suing the devil- answers the question of the validity of God's word in the 21st century

Olori Oko-The King, Jesus, is coming soon.

Once it becomes too difficult for an unbeliever to understand, then you can be sure he's lost to your message. For a few more tips on how to craft media that can cross over into the "secular", take a look at these slides I used for a programme I host monthly.

On books that crossed over

I just wanted to compile a list of some books that have been able to make a crossover into the mainline community from the Christian community. I've read some of them and been greatly blessed. I believe this is another area the kingdom of God can permeate the world. Jesus employed the same style-using stories to share truth (His parables). The truth is who doesn't love to hear some nice story or interesting gist, uhn?

The Circle Triology by Ted Dekker. This set of books explore the story of Creation and redemption using fantasy. His novels have sold over 5 million copies in the United States and over 1 million in 2010 alone. One of his books (THR3E) has even been made into a movie and I bet there's more to come.

Piercing the Darkness by Frank Perretti. It seems to me this is the father of supernatural thrillers. "With more than 15 million novels in print, Frank Peretti is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon and has been called "America's hottest Christian novelist". His books opened up the power and influence of prayer in influencing the outcomes of events in everyday activities.

The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers. This book explores the emotional and spiritual aspects of abortion. The Atonement Child brings a new perspective to this very controversial topic in America.

Have you read any fictional book that's explored the themes of God's kingdom? Let me hear about them, ok? Psst...Tomorrow's my birthday.