Reading Dallas Willard again. I like reading seasoned teachers, who no longer have anything to prove. As the American poet William Stafford wrote: “my mother told me, you don’t have anything to prove to God”. There is something nice about older teachers who aren’t in competition with the world or other leaders. It usually comes later in life, but I can always note the tone when i hear it!  A close friend of mine met him before he died and described how humble Dallas was and thankful, and a listening teacher—those qualities, always makes we want to sit under a teacher!

“All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don’t come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure. Renovation of the Heart is simply an attempt to say, “Here’s the Christian picture. It’s all true. It works. It’s accessible to everybody. And there’s nothing that compares with it on earth.”

Dallas Willard

What we are? And how we live well? Who am I, what is my purpose and what empowers me to live out that purpose! Spirit, soul and physical body. How they work in tandem with God:

The spirit is meant to direct the whole person. I received a teaching years back on  the chain of spiritual command (as heaven has a hierarchy, and Jesus is actually the Name above all others, and The King!)—the short version of this chain of command was something like this: Father, Jesus, Spirit, Bible in the Spirit, our own spirit’s responding, our co-ruling our souls with Jesus, our outwardly blessings others and our world. That’s the basic hierarchy, and the Kingdom does work in a hierarchy. Even in ourselves, our spirit or will must be in charge. King David tells his soul to be still, and know God. We have to do the same daily!

The spiritual mechanics of a thorough incarnation of the life of Christ in His People, is what Willard is writing about in Renovations of the Heart. How we get Jesus into our “embodied will and heart”. How we really live out from the Life of Jesus.

Just read a great interview with Dallas Willard about his last book. I love overhearing in interview form, just what people have really learned and embodied in their spiritualities and lives. Something about the format, allows people to be frank about how far they have gotten in understanding and living life well. It’s a window into the possible in terms of spiritual growth. We need those who are out in front of us, who are still growing spiritually right up until the end of this life. Perhaps, we keep growing less interruptedly in the next!

What I took away from his interview: If we want to change society it must begin with our inner life being transformed and incarnated by Jesus Christ. We need to actively participate in this process. To the degree we have allowed the formation of His Life in us, collaborated in His forming of our own identity (Merton would call that partnering in making our own identity with Christ) we will be useful to others, including society. He also has a holistic model of transformation or sanctification which includes the whole person—mind, emotions, the physical body etc. He distinguishes between the soul and spirit, and teaches that the spirit is the real Ruler in the inner life, and must ally with The Holy Spirit to be guided properly, and then guide the whole self. This stuff is basic, but needed in His People and in the world.

At the end of his life, Dallas Willard really emphasized the formation  of the life of Christ in people, and the practicals of how that happens, and some of the ramifications of His fuller incarnation in His People-the true Church. Getting Christ into every area of my own life has always felt to me to be the goal of “Christ”ian life.  A deeper formation or incarnation into what he called the embodied will. I like that someone was trying to name a deeper version of the Life of Christ entering into people, and that he noted practical practices to help facilitate it. Good teacher, and a kind man whose last words were thanks!

When I was in seminary, I had a vision of a deeper incarnation of Christ being made available starting at the Reformation (re-formation of His Life in His People), and that He wanted to increase this level of incarnation of His Actual Life in His People in our day. I saw a deeper baptism into His Name for us who are willing. That He had a deep desire to go deeper into us in every area of our lives, and this would bring a profound transformation in His Body and then out into society. That people would start being more concerned with knowing Him, than doing things for Him. That the church’s core focus would become being discipled in order to be real authentic disciples of the nations.

This vision made it very clear to me, that my main task in life was to partner with Him in allowing His actual Life to form in me firstly, and then to partner with Him in bringing His Life to others. I can only offer to you what aspects of His Life, He has already formed in me! And if I wanted to make a real impact with my life, i needed to focus on His forming in my inner life first! This made it clear my inner life was more important than my outer life, and that it was the place to start. Outer expression flows from inner Reality. To the degree we are formed in Christ or His Life actually lives in us, we are able to bless outwardly.

It is nice to find teachers finally focused primarily on the Life of Christ actually forming in people, not just number or initial salvation, but true lasting formation of the character and Life of Jesus in His People. So that the character of the church will match her calling. All my mentors basically taught the same thing, before there was a developed language of “spiritual formation”. Your friendship with Jesus should effect and infect every area of your life. Then you may be given or useful to others and your part of society or sphere of influence. If we don’t start there, we end up with mere religion, but not essential Christianity.

Of course, there will be controversy around this renewal as there are in all revivals in the life of His Church. God has always wanted to know us, and we have always needed to know and love Him, and be transformed and made new by our friendship with Him-nothing has really changed about the human predicament. But we are being built up as His Temple, His House, His Holy Portion, His Own inheritance (who are we to refuse His Life in us after all He is and has and is doing!) and He is able to finish what He began in us. He who called, is also able to cause us to stand! And become in Him who we truly are. Our faith requires us to believe in Jesus ability to form His Own Life in His People. And then outwardly through His People into the world. We as participants in the Divine Nature, as Peter put it, need the faith to actually be becoming the sons and daughters of God in a practical way down here, while living on earth.

Renewal movements and revivals (God quickening a word to His People) in church history always, begin with true revelations from Heaven, yet start in immaturity and grow into maturity. You see this with the Messianic movement the Welsh Revival, the great awakenings, Azusa, or whatever movements you happened to be seeded by—the “missional” movement etc; but if you go to the original seed, you find the Truth that God was trying to restore to His Body, before the distortions made by humans! You want to focus on what God was actually saying and wanting to download into His Body before we distorted it. When looking at church history, we should be slow to throw out The Baby with the bathwater!

In this area of spiritual formation, which God has been trying to re-emphashize to the true church in our time, you can start to hear a more mature version of this spiritual formation movement through the writings and teaching and, more importantly, the life of Dallas Willard. A tree or teacher is known by his fruit! I’m always thankful for those who walked the walk, then talked the talk! This who actually manifest and walk out what they teach! It makes a way in the forest of The Father for us all to go more easily, and grow into His True dimensions we are meant to be becoming. The sons and daughters of God, we are! Let us learn to live well in Him, in every area of our beings. Let us enjoy His deeper formation of His Life in us, in our days! It will bless the world when we do!

Who am I? And how can I have the power to live that out! Identity and purpose are still the core issues of being human. Who I am, and why does that matter, and then how do I live. Willard gets to the core stuff of being people. If I come to think that the way to find myself and walk out my purpose is to come into deepening intimacy with Jesus, how do I do that in every area of my life? That’s discipleship. If we don’t know how He is discipling us, how can we disciple the nations? Discipleship is holistic. It includes our thoughts, feels and senses in dialogue with a Living and Forming God!

Who are you? What are you meant to do in life? And how do you receive the power to do that—to walk out the path prepared beforehand to be your way? Identity, purpose and empowerment to live it! Jesus claims to and answers all these in His Own Being! Jesus claims to not just save, but then to whisper who you are to you, and empower your standing into who you are in Him. He who justified is also sanctifying or forming His Life in us; and is able to do so, as we partner and collaborate with Him, in an absolutely yielded being.

Prayer for a deeper formation in us all! May He form Himself ever more fully in each us who want to go into that collaboration of transformation into our forever selves! May we know Him in our thoughts, feelings, imagination and physical bodies in an ever increasing and tangible practical way! We know you desire to know and commune into and with the deepest aspects of who are. And we believer that this communion will transform us into what You have intended, and that this will bless the world. Then, perhaps, we will be of use to others and our world, and creation itself. We are free to prophecy from our future selves in Him back into our current stage of development! Let’s!

Willard is right, that Christ offers the best solutions to the basic and universal issues of being human and living well. If this way is true, it will offer the truth about how Reality really is, and how to live in proper relation to it! And in his last book, he offers some very practical methods of meeting Christ in that process of becoming what we truly are. I appreciate teachers like that. Always great to sit under old trees!

Another, a bit fuller en-Lightened, word from an older saint, about ministering which I came across today, which struck my spirit’s fancy:

“I’m nearly weightless as I serve with and in Him…

Heavy week of counseling here, but what I learned again, is that His Burden is light, and that His burden is Light! He carries our burdens and other’s, and He brings understanding and freedom to those we are carrying in our hearts, and to us as He does—He is always forming and discipling Himself into every direction-into the situation and into us! He brings understanding and love, and we ourselves don’t have to carry it all, but rather be formed by the participation in it. Life is His ministry of Himself to others and us, we get to collaborate and be formed by and with Christ,  as we walk alongside and with and in Him!

So, true ministers are nearly weightless beings! Our tiny crosses are levitated by His. Our small sufferings are informed by, and an opportunity to touch and commune with His. We disappear and re-appear as ourselves into the density of what He is, and what He is carrying through us!”

I’m nearly weightless as I serve with and in Him…

Heavy week of counseling here, but what I learned again, is that His Burden is light, and that His burden is Light! He carries our burdens and other’s, and He brings understanding and freedom to those we are carrying in our hearts, and to us as He does—He is always forming and discipling Himself into every direction! He brings understanding and love, and we ourselves don’t have to carry it all. Life is His ministry of Himself to others and us, we get to collaborate and be formed by and with Christ,  as we walk alongside and with and in Him! True ministers are nearly weightless beings!

His True Image: why the art really matter still! And how our creativity relates to our cities!

From an article I’m working on about seeing and being in love with cities: Mending the imaginations of our neighborhoods and cities into His True Image.

I’m in love with cities!

“Each city and country has its gifts, and struggles, and unique broken but redeemable reflections of certain aspects of The Real. Finding their particular nuances and what aspect they reflect of God, has become part of my spirituality.” (from a book on the theology of cities, I’m reading; to disciple the nations you have to know them and love them first like people!)

Cities are like people to me-on a journey of becoming, in need of love and revelation to know themselves, just like us. I like walking alongside them, and enjoying what they already know, and seeing what they need. Listening to them on their own terms, not mine. Trying to hear them for what they truly are, not through my projections or needs on them.

In my life, I’ve fallen in love with many cities…

Each city reflects unique aspects: Antwerp has creative curious friendship; berlin a strong house for all nations and bold leadership-arm of God stuff; Prague, that sweet song of solomon fragrance, a lover’s attire, and a place of mystical exchanges in conversation; Austin, creative incubator, entrepreneurial catalyst haven…each city has their gifts and their struggles to become. It is a joy to get to know so many places well. So many places still yet to know and love in this life. Perhaps we never finish in loving…

Of course, like people, our very strengths unredeemed are also our greatest weaknesses, or areas of life which are hardest to live out. So the biggest wounds are often where the greatest strengths reside. I like looking there first to know and listen. So a place of friendship, can become insular; a place of leadership can become presumptuous, a place of curiosity can become mentally unstable etc—but just on the other side of these shadows, is the redeemed identity, standing in the Light, and reflecting upwardly. I like to bring salt and light right there. So I can see who the other really is.

I also like to think of how individual’s stories who live in a city, relate to the city’s biography. How our personal stories relate to our city’s narrative has always fascinated me. Why am I here in this place at this moment of our journeys. What developmental stage is my city at, and my own—how do they match and where do they not? I love asking these sorts of questions as I travel.

I have an insatiable appetite to love more places people and things, and to come to know God through them, and let them be loved by God into their true shining..let’s take off our outer masks and get to know one another deep to deep friend. I’m in love with what that outer expression is coming from! As Van Gogh said, “The way to know God is to love many things deeply.”

“We are trying to encounter and mend a fuller image of who God is by seeing and loving one another and places more precisely-to see things true, helps them to become truly themselves, for God’s perception heals places. We are doing a repairing of the imagination—how we image God, one another, and the earth itself. One way to do so, is to see one another more accurately through His Eyes. When we see well, we are engaged in healing the imagination of Reality. To baptize our imaginations is an act of healing for the world. When we see accurately, we help things be more truly themselves.”

When we were told to disciple the nations, it included cities. We were to disciple them into all three Names of God—the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Part of this holistic baptism into all three Names, is to see one another in love. We see through His Love, this lens made for the aperture of the spiritual imagination. We must wear it, or put it on, so we can see one another more as He does. This is the use of the imagination in discipleship. Blessed are you church, Jesus says through Peter, for The Father has revealed this to you. The Father had revealed the true identity of Jesus to Peter, so He could see that He was The Son of God. We are equally blessed when the Father shows us the true Identity of His Son, and as He reveals the true identities of one another through His lens of Love.

This is a key part of the role of imagination in discipleship of the nations. The baptized imagination sees more as He sees, the true identity of other. And can therefore call it forth and bless it into His Name. He is healing the nations through the imagination. We are no longer just using the imagination to carry gospel information, we are actually allowing Him to look out through the imagination and heal the nations. The sanctified imagination is part of what Christ uses to heal the nations. the cities, and the world itself.

Ultimately, we have to get a clear picture of who God is. When we do, we will see what parts of His Life are reflected in others around us, and our cities. And which parts are still being brought into alignment with His True Image. Then we ourselves can start to try on our eternal images, and we can help others put on theirs. By starting to wear our eternal clothes, we begin to imagine ourselves more as He sees us. By helping others try on theirs, we get to partner with Him in healing the nations!

Practices: When we pray, write down or draw what we see about whatever or whomever we are praying for. Gather them, and ask the Holy Spirit to amplify them towards a fuller picture, to fill in the poem of its true being.

Then our seeing becomes a way of getting to appreciate how God sees.

When we walk around our neighborhoods ask Him to draw your attention to things which represent the aspects of Him He wants to draw out and bless in that neighborhood. And which sins still need to be confessed for that area to become a clearer reflection of Him!

When we prayer walk our cities, start to enter His creative dialogue with her central symbols or meeting places. Be part of mending the imagination of your city! See what He wants them to be, if the patterns of sin were removed. Pray and confess those blocks of sin in each place which keep Him from expressing Himself more accurately.

Praxis:

You can do this in small groups or by yourself.

Try to paint or draw, dance, photo, or write how that place would look whole.

There are many other exercises I use, but these are a few.

I often take a camera and sketch pad out as I walk through a neighborhood. I try to photo basic objects which represent the identity of that place. If your neighborhood had three basic symbols to represent itself, what would they be. I focus on that, and then ask Him how He sees them, and try to make my art in response to His answer. Or as a response to what He reveals. The art often becomes an answer. My technique may not be perfect, but the conversation itself reveals things to my spirit about who this place really is, and who it wants to be! That is entering His making it more whole, or healing.

Creative prayer walking, or walking with your imagination engaged in your relationship with Christ, can change the atmosphere of your sphere or domain of influence—your neighborhoods and cities can become a clearer reflection of His True image there. We become reconcilers of the cultural expressions with the core identities of our cities. That integration process is the same which happens on a personal level as you allow God to talk to you through your imagination, or in your creative process. Most artist don’t think about their art making as a place of meeting God, but it is meant to be.  As you do so, you find that you yourself also become clearer, and more clearly formed, in this creative collaborative partnership and dialogue with God in mending the imagination of people places and things.

One of the purposes of art is to encounter and know and therefore end up loving God. This is the purpose of every area of Life, but is often overlooked with the creative aspects of our relationship with God. Ask Him to help you meet Him in your creativity. You will be surprised by the increase vibrancy of your own imagination.

The Romantics made the mistake of idolizing the imagination. But since the enlightenment, or before, the church has made the mistake of distrusting the imagination. If you throw out the imagination in your relationship with God, you miss out on much of who He is. Creativity has His Life in it, and that birthing power. We need that force even to re-imagine God Himself. We need our image of Him corrected firstly. One way to begin this process is to make art with God.

Jesus is Lord over the whole Person. God is One, and wants to love our whole selves. Our creativity is included in our relationship with God! Most artist don’t contextualize their creative process in their relationship with God. But that is exactly where it flourishes most. There is also an overt relationship between art and healing.

In graduate school I studied arts and healing. What was missing there was the key Jesus Factor. But when we bring Him into the center of the creative process, when we ask Him to baptize our imaginations, we do find that He heals us through our creative activities. The arts can become both part of our healing, and the healing of the imaginations of our cities!

Some artist are so talented, that they struggle to put their talents on the altar. Others are so intimidated by their own creativity that they never get playful with God and their gifts. Most artist struggle with the need to be seen in their process, and often an acute sense that they were born as outsiders or observers, and often they don’t know why they are in that marginalized position. Of course, Jesus loves the freaks and marginalized, so He is always there waiting to meet them. I’ve discipled artist for over 20 years now, and some of the patterns are the same.

The general enemies in the art world, celebrity culture or entertainment spirit, witchcraft and sorcery are all obvious in most art school programs. How do you value or contextualize your art making process. Is it number of successful gallery shows, is it becoming famous, as it often is for musicians for instance; is it having collective books of your work, is it meaningful collaboration with your heroes? There are many gauges of success offered in art school. But rarely is the depth of which you met and where formed by God the highest aim.

The general enemies for artist in the church world have been named well. Using the arts only for evangelism, to decorate the building rather than express the church’s core identity; the prostitution or using the arts as propaganda for God; the worship entertainment machine, which uses artist’s gifts to entertain people in order usually to get higher numbers in the pews etc. Christian artist have to find a way to place their creativity in a larger Kingdom context, in order to not grow bitter or boxed in by the church’s poverty of imagination concerning the arts. Of course, much has changed in the church over time in regards to the arts, and there is positive expansions of imagination going on even within her more institutional walls. Still, the artist must find a way to keep art making as part of their authentic spirituality, and not get lost in the narrow purview the church often has towards the arts.

I work with people in both the art world and the church world, both ultimately have to contextualize their creativity in their personal relationship with God and in His Kingdom. Since my father is a minister and my mother an artist I have grown up knowing both worlds intimately, and tried to integrate them in Him, and His Kingdom. Since, Jesus is Lord over all the realms and the whole person, and the church and the art world, we are free to create as those in His Image. But we often have no clear spiritual context for our creativity. I see this struggle for christian artist as well as others. The challenge is always to bring your whole self to the One God. And be in relationship and conversation, allowing His Holy Spirit to guide you into understanding and interpretation of your creativity. That is true across the board.

Over the years, I’ve met many very high impact artist and leaders in the arts; some have been part of leading cultural movements. Many of these, still do not have a full understanding or context for their creativity and how it fits into their personal spirituality. I like helping them find His Kingdom context for their creativity. Something bigger than worldly versions of success. And bigger than the church’s “use” of the arts. He is growing the imagination of the church to see how creative He actually is, and how He enjoys dialoguing with His People through their creativity.

Prayer is creative! And a place where His Imagination touches ours. Prayer itself then can become a place where you get to know more of who God is, and how He sees yourself, your home, your neighborhood, and your city. Prayer becomes a way of getting to know and therefore love God more! And your place becomes a medium through which you come to appreciate all He sees. For the eyes of Lord are always watching, and caring for what He Himself made, knows, redeems and loves.

Jesus is Lord over the art world and the church, His Body. His book in which He revealed Himself is a work of art, and we ourselves are said to be His masterpiece poems (Ephesians 2:10). Our very identities are His art. Thus, we are free to create with and in Him in order to be more fully formed into His Nature.

The fuller incarnation of His Imagination in His People, is one of His goals in our times. He wants us to see and create with Him and in Him. When we do, you will see some of the greatest art of all time emerging. Here it comes. He is birthing and incarnating His Imagination more intensely in His People in our times. If they are not open, He will use anyone open to download His Images and Perceptions onto earth!

He wants to incarnate in our imaginations more intensely in our times. This is happening as the darkening of imagination through pornography and false advertising, propaganda, and banal uses of the imagination are increasing—the wheat and tares grow together; the darkness increases, but so does the Reality of His Light! God wants to enter in to our creative dimensions, and make us more fully human in this key area. The arts are not just for artist anymore. They are part of His deeper incarnation on earth, and are a place i which He is preparing a way for His Kingdom to come.

His True Image: why the art really matter still! And how our creativity relates to our cities!

From an article I’m working on about seeing and being in love with cities: Mending the imaginations of our neighborhoods and cities into His True Image.

I’m in love with cities!

“Each city and country has its gifts, and struggles, and unique broken but redeemable reflections of certain aspects of The Real. Finding their particular nuances and what aspect they reflect of God, has become part of my spirituality.” (from a book on the theology of cities, I’m reading; to disciple the nations you have to know them and love them first like people!)

Cities are like people to me-on a journey of becoming, in need of love and revelation to know themselves, just like us. I like walking alongside them, and enjoying what they already know, and seeing what they need. Listening to them on their own terms, not mine. Trying to hear them for what they truly are, not through my projections or needs on them.

In my life, I’ve fallen in love with many cities…

Each city reflects unique aspects: Antwerp has creative curious friendship; berlin a strong house for all nations and bold leadership-arm of God stuff; Prague, that sweet song of solomon fragrance, a lover’s attire, and a place of mystical exchanges in conversation; Austin, creative incubator, entrepreneurial catalyst haven…each city has their gifts and their struggles to become. It is a joy to get to know so many places well. So many places still yet to know and love in this life. Perhaps we never finish in loving…

Of course, like people, our very strengths unredeemed are also our greatest weaknesses, or areas of life which are hardest to live out. So the biggest wounds are often where the greatest strengths reside. I like looking there first to know and listen. So a place of friendship, can become insular; a place of leadership can become presumptuous, a place of curiosity can become mentally unstable etc—but just on the other side of these shadows, is the redeemed identity, standing in the Light, and reflecting upwardly. I like to bring salt and light right there. So I can see who the other really is.

I also like to think of how individual’s stories who live in a city, relate to the city’s biography. How our personal stories relate to our city’s narrative has always fascinated me. Why am I here in this place at this moment of our journeys. What developmental stage is my city at, and my own—how do they match and where do they not? I love asking these sorts of questions as I travel.

I have an insatiable appetite to love more places people and things, and to come to know God through them, and let them be loved by God into their true shining..let’s take off our outer masks and get to know one another deep to deep friend. I’m in love with what that outer expression is coming from! As Van Gogh said, “The way to know God is to love many things deeply.”

“We are trying to encounter and mend a fuller image of who God is by seeing and loving one another and places more precisely-to see things true, helps them to become truly themselves, for God’s perception heals places. We are doing a repairing of the imagination—how we image God, one another, and the earth itself. One way to do so, is to see one another more accurately through His Eyes. When we see well, we are engaged in healing the imagination of Reality. To baptize our imaginations is an act of healing for the world. When we see accurately, we help things be more truly themselves.”

When we were told to disciple the nations, it included cities. We were to disciple them into all three Names of God—the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Part of this holistic baptism into all three Names, is to see one another in love. We see through His Love, this lens made for the aperture of the spiritual imagination. We must wear it, or put it on, so we can see one another more as He does. This is the use of the imagination in discipleship. Blessed are you church, Jesus says through Peter, for The Father has revealed this to you. The Father had revealed the true identity of Jesus to Peter, so He could see that He was The Son of God. We are equally blessed when the Father shows us the true Identity of His Son, and as He reveals the true identities of one another through His lens of Love.

This is a key part of the role of imagination in discipleship of the nations. The baptized imagination sees more as He sees, the true identity of other. And can therefore call it forth and bless it into His Name. He is healing the nations through the imagination. We are no longer just using the imagination to carry gospel information, we are actually allowing Him to look out through the imagination and heal the nations. The sanctified imagination is part of what Christ uses to heal the nations. the cities, and the world itself.

Ultimately, we have to get a clear picture of who God is. When we do, we will see what parts of His Life are reflected in others around us, and our cities. And which parts are still being brought into alignment with His True Image. Then we ourselves can start to try on our eternal images, and we can help others put on theirs. By starting to wear our eternal clothes, we begin to imagine ourselves more as He sees us. By helping others try on theirs, we get to partner with Him in healing the nations!

Practices: When we pray, write down or draw what we see about whatever or whomever we are praying for. Gather them, and ask the Holy Spirit to amplify them towards a fuller picture, to fill in the poem of its true being.

Then our seeing becomes a way of getting to appreciate how God sees.

When we walk around our neighborhoods ask Him to draw your attention to things which represent the aspects of Him He wants to draw out and bless in that neighborhood. And which sins still need to be confessed for that area to become a clearer reflection of Him!

When we prayer walk our cities, start to enter His creative dialogue with her central symbols or meeting places. Be part of mending the imagination of your city! See what He wants them to be, if the patterns of sin were removed. Pray and confess those blocks of sin in each place which keep Him from expressing Himself more accurately.

Praxis:

You can do this in small groups or by yourself.

Try to paint or draw, dance, photo, or write how that place would look whole.

There are many other exercises I use, but these are a few.

I often take a camera and sketch pad out as I walk through a neighborhood. I try to photo basic objects which represent the identity of that place. If your neighborhood had three basic symbols to represent itself, what would they be. I focus on that, and then ask Him how He sees them, and try to make my art in response to His answer. Or as a response to what He reveals. The art often becomes an answer. My technique may not be perfect, but the conversation itself reveals things to my spirit about who this place really is, and who it wants to be! That is entering His making it more whole, or healing.

Creative prayer walking, or walking with your imagination engaged in your relationship with Christ, can change the atmosphere of your sphere or domain of influence—your neighborhoods and cities can become a clearer reflection of His True image there. We become reconcilers of the cultural expressions with the core identities of our cities. That integration process is the same which happens on a personal level as you allow God to talk to you through your imagination, or in your creative process. Most artist don’t think about their art making as a place of meeting God, but it is meant to be.  As you do so, you find that you yourself also become clearer, and more clearly formed, in this creative collaborative partnership and dialogue with God in mending the imagination of people places and things.

One of the purposes of art is to encounter and know and therefore end up loving God. This is the purpose of every area of Life, but is often overlooked with the creative aspects of our relationship with God. Ask Him to help you meet Him in your creativity. You will be surprised by the increase vibrancy of your own imagination.

The Romantics made the mistake of idolizing the imagination. But since the enlightenment, or before, the church has made the mistake of distrusting the imagination. If you throw out the imagination in your relationship with God, you miss out on much of who He is. Creativity has His Life in it, and that birthing power. We need that force even to re-imagine God Himself. We need our image of Him corrected firstly. One way to begin this process is to make art with God.

Jesus is Lord over the whole Person. God is One, and wants to love our whole selves. Our creativity is included in our relationship with God! Most artist don’t contextualize their creative process in their relationship with God. But that is exactly where it flourishes most. There is also an overt relationship between art and healing.

In graduate school I studied arts and healing. What was missing there was the key Jesus Factor. But when we bring Him into the center of the creative process, when we ask Him to baptize our imaginations, we do find that He heals us through our creative activities. The arts can become both part of our healing, and the healing of the imaginations of our cities!

Some artist are so talented, that they struggle to put their talents on the altar. Others are so intimidated by their own creativity that they never get playful with God and their gifts. Most artist struggle with the need to be seen in their process, and often an acute sense that they were born as outsiders or observers, and often they don’t know why they are in that marginalized position. Of course, Jesus loves the freaks and marginalized, so He is always there waiting to meet them. I’ve discipled artist for over 20 years now, and some of the patterns are the same.

The general enemies in the art world, celebrity culture or entertainment spirit, witchcraft and sorcery are all obvious in most art school programs. How do you value or contextualize your art making process. Is it number of successful gallery shows, is it becoming famous, as it often is for musicians for instance; is it having collective books of your work, is it meaningful collaboration with your heroes? There are many gauges of success offered in art school. But rarely is the depth of which you met and where formed by God the highest aim.

The general enemies for artist in the church world have been named well. Using the arts only for evangelism, to decorate the building rather than express the church’s core identity; the prostitution or using the arts as propaganda for God; the worship entertainment machine, which uses artist’s gifts to entertain people in order usually to get higher numbers in the pews etc. Christian artist have to find a way to place their creativity in a larger Kingdom context, in order to not grow bitter or boxed in by the church’s poverty of imagination concerning the arts. Of course, much has changed in the church over time in regards to the arts, and there is positive expansions of imagination going on even within her more institutional walls. Still, the artist must find a way to keep art making as part of their authentic spirituality, and not get lost in the narrow purview the church often has towards the arts.

I work with people in both the art world and the church world, both ultimately have to contextualize their creativity in their personal relationship with God and in His Kingdom. Since my father is a minister and my mother an artist I have grown up knowing both worlds intimately, and tried to integrate them in Him, and His Kingdom. Since, Jesus is Lord over all the realms and the whole person, and the church and the art world, we are free to create as those in His Image. But we often have no clear spiritual context for our creativity. I see this struggle for christian artist as well as others. The challenge is always to bring your whole self to the One God. And be in relationship and conversation, allowing His Holy Spirit to guide you into understanding and interpretation of your creativity. That is true across the board.

Over the years, I’ve met many very high impact artist and leaders in the arts; some have been part of leading cultural movements. Many of these, still do not have a full understanding or context for their creativity and how it fits into their personal spirituality. I like helping them find His Kingdom context for their creativity. Something bigger than worldly versions of success. And bigger than the church’s “use” of the arts. He is growing the imagination of the church to see how creative He actually is, and how He enjoys dialoguing with His People through their creativity.

Prayer is creative! And a place where His Imagination touches ours. Prayer itself then can become a place where you get to know more of who God is, and how He sees yourself, your home, your neighborhood, and your city. Prayer becomes a way of getting to know and therefore love God more! And your place becomes a medium through which you come to appreciate all He sees. For the eyes of Lord are always watching, and caring for what He Himself made, knows, redeems and loves.

Jesus is Lord over the art world and the church, His Body. His book in which He revealed Himself is a work of art, and we ourselves are said to be His masterpiece poems (Ephesians 2:10). Our very identities are His art. Thus, we are free to create with and in Him in order to be more fully formed into His Nature.

The fuller incarnation of His Imagination in His People, is one of His goals in our times. He wants us to see and create with Him and in Him. When we do, you will see some of the greatest art of all time emerging. Here it comes. He is birthing and incarnating His Imagination more intensely in His People in our times. If they are not open, He will use anyone open to download His Images and Perceptions onto earth!

He wants to incarnate in our imaginations more intensely in our times. This is happening as the darkening of imagination through pornography and false advertising, propaganda, and banal uses of the imagination are increasing—the wheat and tares grow together; the darkness increases, but so does the Reality of His Light! God wants to enter in to our creative dimensions, and make us more fully human in this key area. The arts are not just for artist anymore. They are part of His deeper incarnation on earth, and are a place i which He is preparing a way for His Kingdom to come.

From an article I’m working on about seeing and being in love with cities: Mending the imaginations of our neighborhoods and cities into His True Image.

I’m in love with cities!

“Each city and country has its gifts, and struggles, and unique broken but redeemable reflections of certain aspects of The Real. Finding their particular nuances and what aspect they reflect of God, has become part of my spirituality.” (from a book on the theology of cities, I’m reading; to disciple the nations you have to know them and love them first like people!)

Cities are like people to me-on a journey of becoming, in need of love and revelation to know themselves, just like us. I like walking alongside them, and enjoying what they already know, and seeing what they need. Listening to them on their own terms, not mine. Trying to hear them for what they truly are, not through my projections or needs on them.

In my life, I’ve fallen in love with many cities…

Each city reflects unique aspects: Antwerp has creative curious friendship; berlin a strong house for all nations and bold leadership-arm of God stuff; Prague, that sweet song of solomon fragrance, a lover’s attire, and a place of mystical exchanges in conversation; Austin, creative incubator, entrepreneurial catalyst haven…each city has their gifts and their struggles to become. It is a joy to get to know so many places well. So many places still yet to know and love in this life. Perhaps we never finish in loving…

Of course, like people, our very strengths unredeemed are also our greatest weaknesses, or areas of life which are hardest to live out. So the biggest wounds are often where the greatest strengths reside. I like looking there first to know and listen. So a place of friendship, can become insular; a place of leadership can become presumptuous, a place of curiosity can become mentally unstable etc—but just on the other side of these shadows, is the redeemed identity, standing in the Light, and reflecting upwardly. I like to bring salt and light right there. So I can see who the other really is.

I also like to think of how individual’s stories who live in a city, relate to the city’s biography. How our personal stories relate to our city’s narrative has always fascinated me. Why am I here in this place at this moment of our journeys. What developmental stage is my city at, and my own—how do they match and where do they not? I love asking these sorts of questions as I travel.

I have an insatiable appetite to love more places people and things, and to come to know God through them, and let them be loved by God into their true shining..let’s take off our outer masks and get to know one another deep to deep friend. I’m in love with what that outer expression is coming from! As Van Gogh said, “The way to know God is to love many things deeply.”

“We are trying to encounter and mend a fuller image of who God is by seeing a loving one another and places more precisely. We are doing a repairing of the imagination—how we image God, one another, and the earth itself. One way to do so, is to see one another more accurately. When we see well, we are engaged in healing the imagination of Reality. To baptize our imaginations is an act of healing for the world. When we see accurately, we help things be more truly themselves.”

When we were told to disciple the nations, it included cities. We were to disciple them into all three Names of God—the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Part of this holistic baptism into all three Names, is to see one another in love. We see through His Love, this lens made for the aperture of the spiritual imagination. We must wear it, or put it on, so we can see one another more as He does. This is the use of the imagination in discipleship. Blessed are you church, Jesus says through Peter, for The Father has revealed this to you. The Father had revealed the true identity of Jesus to Peter, so He could see that He was The Son of God. We are equally blessed when the Father shows us the true Identity of His Son, and as He reveals the true identities of one another through His lens of Love.

This is a key part of the role of imagination in discipleship of the nations. The baptized imagination sees more as He sees, the true identity of other. And can therefore call it forth and bless it into His Name. He is healing the nations through the imagination. We are no longer just using the imagination to carry gospel information, we are actually allowing Him to look out through the imagination and heal the nations. The sanctified imagination is part of what Christ uses to heal the nations. the cities, and the world itself.

Ultimately, we have to get a clear picture of who God is. When we do, we will see what parts of His Life are reflected in others around us, and our cities. And which parts are still being brought into alignment with His True Image. Then we ourselves can start to try on our eternal images, and we can help others put on theirs. By starting to wear our eternal clothes, we begin to imagine ourselves more as He sees us. By helping others try on theirs, we get to partner with Him in healing the nations!

Practices: When we pray, write down or draw what we see about whatever or whomever we are praying for. Gather them, and ask the Holy Spirit to amplify them towards a fuller picture, to fill in the poem of its true being.

Then our seeing becomes a way of getting to appreciate how God sees.

When we walk around our neighborhoods ask Him to draw your attention to things which represent the aspects of Him He wants to draw out and bless in that neighborhood. And which sins still need to be confessed for that area to become a clearer reflection of Him!

When we prayer walk our cities, start to enter His creative dialogue with her central symbols or meeting places. Be part of mending the imagination of your city! See what He wants them to be, if the patterns of sin were removed. Pray and confess those blocks of sin in each place which keep Him from expressing Himself more accurately.

You can do this in small groups or by yourself.

Try to paint or draw, dance, photo, or write how that place would look whole.

There are many other exercises I use, but these are a few.

Creative prayer walking, or walking with your imagination engaged in your relationship with Christ, can change the atmosphere of your sphere or domain of influence—your neighborhoods and cities can become a clearer reflection of His True image there. As you do so, you find that you yourself also become clearer in this creative collaborative partnership with God in mending the imagination of people places and things.

Prayer itself then can become a place where you get to know more of who God is, and how He sees yourself, your home, your neighborhood, and your city. Prayer becomes a way of getting to know and therefore love God more! And your place becomes a medium through which you come to appreciate all He sees. For the eyes of Lord are always watching, and caring for what He Himself made, knows, redeems and loves.

I ONLY do what the Father is doing. That was Jesus’ ministry on earth! He was able to discern between His own desires to help everyone, and The Father’s calling and parameters on His Life. Here is what I am giving You to do today. I will only do what The Father has on me today to do. That is our practice or praxis. The circumference of our ministry or Kingdom influence changes seasonally, but we are meant to live within those pleasant lines of our inheritance, and many times, it is a discipline to do so. But this is how we bear the most fruit. We only do what we see the Father doing in our season. We stick to the alloted lands He has given us. This is to shift from just obedience, into stewardship and cultivation. This is how we bear the best fruit.

Diary: an entry from somewhere at sometime, neither of which i recall.

I have favor with internationals and artist. Over and over. I always want to lead them to a context for their creativity and culture in His Kingdom. I wish at times, i had an art gallery so i could show everyone’s work, and disciple them directly through the symbolic, as i have many in the past. I miss that way of creative discipleship—so much can happen directly through the art, when God shows up there. Or some art parties to invite them to. In the past, when i ran creative communities, it was easy to make happenings where spiritual dialogue organically take place; this season is more internal, ruminatory. Still I love the remarkable ones. Remarkables. Those I am drawn to. I like to bless them. I still find them, and they find me, everywhere i go. Even when I am writing in public, the table fills with people wanting to share their art, and be seen, and exchange their unique cultural perspectives. I still love being that kind of father and friend. I like being a royal international father in and through the arts, but i do miss having a gallery house of some sort to contain the type of creative discourse artist need to trip into the Kingdom. Some types of people are discipled best directly through the symbolic. I miss offering that particular container. Still, each season carries its uniquely contoured blessings.

Our tendencies towards idolatry must be daily toppled!

What idolatry really is? When we elevate our soul solutions above His Spirit’s solutions for our needs, we idolize our own reason or soul capacity above God. This is the most basic form of idolatry. I can meet my own needs, and I know how to handle this apart from Him and His Word-our soul is lifted up as god. This is what i call internal idolatry. Of course, even ministry itself can become an idol we lift above God.

 Idolatry has never changed in essence. It says, I have needs, and I can figure out how to meet them without God. I don’t need God or a higher power, i’ve got this, and can meet my own needs. Ironically, the first step in healing, is always, I need something higher than me to help!

If my needs are for intimacy, i can choose my own way of meeting my needs—pornography, affairs, partial covenants, leaning into unordained relationships for intimacy etc. God gives us what we really need, when we take what we think we need instead, we move in the ways of idolatry!

I don’t need a loving God to bless and meet them. I’ve got it. Some dying part of us says.

Idolatry is not just lifting up a literal idol, it is thinking that my soul is as high and wise as God’s Spirit, and can solve it’s own needs. It’s pride of being human.

It is elevating soul solutions above His leading and true solutions. It’s false doctrine because it says, i can solve my own problems apart from God.

Let us not give in to idolatry of any flavor. When we think we can solve and resolve our own problems, we elevate our soul above our own and His spirit. It’s a mistake.

It’s not always intentionally sinful. But as when the Israelites, built the golden cow, exactly at the moment while Moses was downloading the Laws and Ways of God on the mountain—that is still our recurring sin! It’s a pattern of being human. We have needs, and we think we can meet them without any help! In this sense, it is disguised pride. All the ways of sin are present in the Garden story of Adam and Eve.

 But idolatry is ugly and punishable. It’s ugly because it is basically pride. It says ok,, even though God has told me not to eat that, i think i could be enlightened by doing so, thus i will eat it, and even convince others to eat it. That was the first rebellion for humans, and it appears that other creatures had already rebelled against Him before this. As Satan was already trying to convince humanity that God was wrong about what they really needed.

Much later, the priest who allowed that golden calf to be built, were severely punished and a new line of priesthood had to be invented! We need to take care of this issue of raising our soul solutions above His spiritual ones. We are not God. He is. And when we do this regardless of what we are trying to solve, we move in dark ways.

This is why our faith begins with faith in the Most High. Not my ideas, but His, not my solutions but God’s. And He has been clear to us about His solutions to the problems of human life.

When we hear the word idolatry, it sounds so ancient. But it describes a pattern in the human soul of lifting itself above its Maker. In the garden, we began by setting out own will above His. My own interpretation above God’s.

  We all still have a tendency to do this constantly—to make up our own life and solutions to it-without or apart from God. There is always a danger for us in this. And we have to tend our souls accordingly. We were born with a tendency to idolize, to put things, including our own ideas above God and His truths.

David told his soul to be still and listen, and be led. That is a way to overcome idols. Let the spirit be the leader. Be still and know your God, and follow Him into this action.

We have to practice sitting with and in His Spirit and putting off the old man-toppling the idol of the false self, as Paul taught us. Even internally, we have an idol of self which has to be daily torn down, so we can discover His version of our true selves!

We have to bring our spirit’s into alignment with His, and agree to rule over our own bodies and soul’s thoughts in Truth. We do so in His power and through faith that He who called us, is able to also cause us to stand!

To cloth ourselves in Christ, and to put on His Mind where two metaphors Paul offered us for the spiritual activity necessary to discern. Let us be willing to do both. Clothing is covering, Christ is a type of clothing, which, when we wear Him, we find our true contours, the shape we were meant to be! We begin to be comfortable in our own skin, and able to discern what is like Him and what isn’t.

Putting on His Mind is sight and knowledge and accurate spiritual perception. We will need both Him as our clothes and Him as our thoughts and perception to make it through our times and to recognize when we are building or participating in idolatry and when other are. We have to be the ones who lift up only The Head. That is where He is taking us in Him.

Thomas Merton used to hide out in anonymous city churches to be alone with God.

City churches, even or especially if ugly, but hopefully aglow with candlelight. He write of the impossible posture of the statures, they somehow helped Merton be nameless and in that secret place with The Father. He liked to find solitude in them. He spoke of needing these places without the pull of needs or even presence of man, to find that nameless deep place in Himself where he just was dwelling with The Father. I relate to that need to find places outside the roar of voices where we meet all of humankind in silence and the love of God. I like that space actually, even though i am an extrovert and really like people. Probably more than Merton did. My poems are all written in people, and I’m ok with that. The love of God contains all the other things we actually need in life.