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Hey guys!

Here are three things to spark your inner missional flame:

💥 INSPIRED BY

Layers In Meaning-Making

God has already endowed meaning into all things. So we can honor what He’s made in creation.

Idolatry means we’ve adapted that true meaning, enslaving ourselves to created things.

Our aesthetic job is to creatively promote truth, beauty, and meaning.

My missional job is to understand how others have redefined God’s meaning.

The Athenian idols provoked Paul. He was mad.

But he didn’t stay there.

No. He used it as a starting point to engage.

He understood the religious yearnings behind their desire for an idol.

🛠️ EQUIPPED BY

Artistic Provokers

Let us consider how to stimulate
one another to love and good deeds​
​Hebrews 10:24-25 (NASB)

Let’s see how inventive we can be
in encouraging love and helping out…​
​Hebrews 10:24-25 (The Message)

Artists are natural noticers.

They perceive things others might not.

Because of this, they are apt to apply this verse, perhaps, quicker than others.

They intake the world around them, internalize it, then as a way to make sense of what they are in-taking, they must express.

What surprises me about this verse is that I would assume it’s about me doing good works. Like, it seems like it would say, “Let’s consider how to show love and good works to one another.”

But that’s not what it says.

One of the issues the Hebrew believers faced was the temptation to return to the world. Persecution lay at the doorstep if you were a disciple of Christ. Of course the comforts of this world appealed to them.

Due to this, the believers feared meeting together or even acting like believers.

So, the verse is not a happy-go-lucky kind of “let’s do good works together” kind of verse. The surprise comes with the word stimulate.

We are to consider how to stimulate others to love and good works.

That word, stimulate, is only used one other time in the bible. In Acts 15:39 when Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement about John Mark.

It’s a word that means, “irritate,” “provoke,” “nudge,” or “sharpen.” It can be used both negatively and positively.

God has given you, as an artist, a special ability to stimulate others with your craft. You are wired to create a holy spark or motivation in others to serve. When others are in our presence, we want them to be stirred.

All a 100-square mile wildfire needs is one little spark.

Artists are not only missional.

We are multipliers.

🚀 SENT WITH

Byron Spradlin: