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!

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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 living in a frustrating Nigeria.

After listening to a friend of mine preached in church a few Wednesdays ago, I was inspired to write this post. A serious concern has risen over the past two years or so, in the hearts of many nationals of Third world countries as regards nation building. Nigeria is not left out. In Nigeria for example, the educated are waking up to the reality that the destiny of the nation lies in the hand of the polity.

Without a doubt our nation has been rocked with so much in recent times with the absence of our “slow-motion” president for more than 60 days crowning it all up. It is interesting to note that God has provided a solution to this situation so many years before the problem even surfaced (isn’t He such a great God?!).

Jesus, the most influential person who ever lived and the model of true leadership, encountered similar circumstances in the geographical location of the nation Israel where He found Himself, while embarking on a world-changing campaign (Matthew 9:35-38). He looked over the people, men He had created and whose spiritual condition was so important to Him and He observed that they were frustrated, wearied and scattered as ones without any caring shepherd (observe any similarities with Nigerians?). He was moved to the heart at their condition. One cannot but feel the tension in the air on Nigerian streets, homes and offices. Have you ever wondered how some other Nigerians cope with the problems of fuel scarcity, power outages and so on that plague our country? Particularly those who are not privileged to enjoy the benefits most of us reading this post have?

However that is not my focus in this post and I sense that is not the focus of the above mentioned passage either. What use is there in identifying a problem but not providing a solution to it? This, I believe, is the focus of Jesus in this passage. Immediately Jesus saw the helpless, hopeless, hapless condition of the people, He turned to His disciples. This shows very plainly that the responsibility of dealing with the imbalances of society is that of His disciples, the body of Christ. So is it not a breach when the best we have been offering society are just huge conventions, all night programmes, prayer mountains and such like that do not even bring much lasting individual change, not to talk of societal change?

Are our churches just designed by God to gather large crowds and offerings? Bringing it home to the individual level, are we just meant to be bible-quoting, tongue talking individuals who are labelled pastor or “spiri” simply because we read our bibles on the way to work, distribute and read daily devotionals in our offices or pray just before the bus takes off from the bus park?

Jesus turned to His disciples and then informed them, “The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the labourers are few.” The reality is that in the midst of the seeming hopelessness, there are great opportunities. To put what Jesus was saying in another way “The opportunities for impact and influence are numerous but only a few people are seeing them or even logging into them.” He then told His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send more people into the harvest. It would interest you to know that in the original language in which this passage was written, the word “send” means to forcibly push out.

This is God’s strategy in liberating our nation (and I dare say every nation). He will use the frustrations and disappointments we experience to launch us into His divinely appointed purposes for our lives. Is it a wonder then that many people were laid off from banks in recent times? Is it a wonder that Christians were embarrassed by a Sanusi Lamido?

Most of us have forgotten those beautiful visions we had in our polytechnics and university days. Those great dreams that were dropped in our hearts while we served our fatherland during our NYSC and have embarked on a pursuit of comfort-what we will eat and drink, what cars we would drive, etc. All these at the expense of our life’s purposes. God is flushing us out so that the earth and indeed Nigeria can enter its prophetic destiny. You will observe that after Jesus revealed the true situation of things to His disciples and prompted them to take a prophetic (change-effecting) position, He then sent out His disciples as apostles so they could actually do the work (Matthew 10:1, 5).

This is our mandate. This is our call: first to take a spiritual position in response to the frustration around us, and then work to actualize our God given purpose. If Nigeria will enter into her prophetic destiny, of which this year is critical, we must begin to engage in our different life purposes.

“Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God to show His children’s glory completely.” Romans 8:19 (NCV).

Contact without Contamination

Nigeria is 48 and that’s something to be grateful to God for. For a country that has such a diverse ethnicity, its nothing less than a miracle that it has remained a single entity for such a long time (with the kind of leadership we have had and our general lack of vision). Why (you may wonder) am I saying this? Without vision a people will run riot, misbehave and just about do anything they like. Without any sense of direction, a group of people will ultimately run themselves and whatever resources they have aground. But enough said about our present situation, just like someone I met recently said, even a donkey on the streets can analyze the problems of this country so I won’t begin to chronicle the many challenges of Nigeria and how we should be truly the giant of Africa in deed and not in word. What I want to do is to get you to think of a way forward.

It’s been my observation that the church has been too quiet over the years, not recognizing the potential it has in transforming the society it finds itself in. And that’s why I was so impressed when I heard of the various initiatives by some of my brothers, members of the family of God, who organized two events that I believe were geared at making an impact on our national life as a nation. One was a rally that was focused on engendering patriotism and a sense of national unity. The second was a meeting that focused on entrepreneurship as a tool for national economical development. It is with a sigh of relief that I say finally it seems we are beginning to see our role in society.

Finally the body of Christ is seeing that we need to be involved to get any lasting change in this country. We can’t just poke one long pole at the problems and think we can solve them. Salt cannot expect to preserve anything if it does not come in contact with it, or can it? Even God had to experience the things we go through so that He can help us properly (Hebrews ). I mean it is completely impossible to think we can get to extricate ourselves from the society we live in and expect that things would just get better. We must take responsibility for the good of our communities. Or why has God left you on the earth after making you His child? However with this involvement comes one of the greatest challenges we can ever have, contamination.

The fear of the children of God in Nigeria over the years has been that if I mixed and mingled with them, won’t I eventually become like them? We’ve misunderstood God’s word where He tells us to come out from among them and be separate and because of that we refuse to participate in anything and eventually we become “heavenly conscious and earthly irrelevant” (12 o’clock Christians as someone put it).

So how can we be effective change agents without losing our Christ-like flavour? We can take a cue from someone who has some experience. Daniel was a young man who had been forcefully and unexpectedly moved into a new society and was expected to learn new values and lifestyles. Here he was exposed to all kinds of influences that were foreign to him. I believe Daniel’s secret can be found in the fact that he had another influence stronger than the external. If a child of God will really make any impact he must come with something different from what everyone is experiencing. Did you observe that Daniel’s diet was different from that of the others? Is it any wonder that he stood out? Daniel was able to live in that kind of society simply because he was connected to a Source different from what all the others were and if we will stand out in this age, as solution providers and change agents, we need to be connected to another Source.

So what is the solution to avoiding contamination? It’s a vibrant relationship with God. It’s a very clear principle in nature that once there’s space, it’s just a matter of time; it will be filled with something. So if there’s an empty can on the side of the road, in a matter of days, it would be filled with something, if there’s a leadership vacuum and a good leader doesn’t fill it, a bad one will.

So lets get deeply involved in God not just in some daily or weekly religious activities but an active participation in God such that His values rub off on us. Like a Nigerian proverb says, when the leaves have mingled with the soap enough, it eventually becomes soap.