FlickrFriday: Child of God by Travis Silva
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Check out Travis Silva’s (Forgiven! on Flickr) mission trip images from Gulu, Uganda… Beautiful and poignant images of children living in poverty…
If you photoshare on Flickr, join our group.
Psst... Pass it on...
Cultivating Discipline, Part 6: Making Good Decisions…
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I knew I should've packed a map...
Good decisions leading to firm commitments are vital to developing discipline… BUT making good decisions requires discipline… This is the circular reality that always seems to bite me on the tush… So, I’ve given it some thought and reading this week and wanted to share with you guys…
Good decisions grow out of a life lived in conversational relationship with God… I can link almost every bad decision that I’ve made in my life to a lack of consistent prayer and Bible study… I have found that practicing this kind of intimacy with God is both energizing and exhausting, but well worth the effort in the face of any significant choice…
I don’t want to sound too mystical, but the truth is that when we saturate our minds with God’s Word and devote our hearts to intimacy with Him, He speaks… Often in an almost audible way (and I wouldn’t totally throw out the possibility of actual audibility either) to the simplest request for guidance…
Poor decisions grow out of a focus that is off of Jesus. So, make sure that your mind and heart are tuned to Him before you leap…
I recently found myself in the position of having already made a bad decision… I’ll tell you about it because it has a happy ending:
About a year ago, I wrote a post about artists helping missionaries tell their stories… After that, I had the opportunity to do a brand development and web presence project for an orphanage in the Philippines. This led to a similar project for the parent-ministry… Which led to an offer to join the administrative team of a small, but internationally-placed missions organization…
Up to that point, I was just using my gifts to serve these missionaries… Suddenly, faced with the decision of whether or not to join the leadership of this significant ministry, I jumped without really taking enough time to consider the decision…
I almost immediately regretted it… It wasn’t the kind of work that I feel called to do… I didn’t really enjoy it and it played to my administrative weaknesses… And it significantly sucked time away from my areas of deepest calling and vocation…
Fortunately, I was not financially bound to the position and I was able to pull-out of the higher administration role and stay connected to the promotional and marketing aspects that originally drew me into the organization…
There have been times in my life that I could not easily opt-out of a decision… I have several of these looming on the horizon… As I look forward to them, I see very clearly a truth that I’ve missed in the past:
Making a bad decision to a long-term commitment is not the end of the world IF you are positioned in close relationship to God so that He can guide you through the process of making the best of the situation… One bad decision doesn’t mean that you’re life is totally derailed… God is much bigger than that… But you may have to take the long road through the dessert to the Promised Land…
Wave encouragingly at the people you meet on that road, we like that…
NEXT in this series: A Sound Mind…
Psst... Pass it on...What the heck is “vocation”…
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Once upon a time, I had an office with “Pastor” emblazoned on the door… Not that there’s anything wrong with that… But I was under the mistaken impression that the only true Christian “vocation” was being on-staff in a traditional church setting…
Forgive me for being a bit obvious, but that’s simply not the case… In fact, it never was. A few weeks ago, I had a long talk with my own pastor about my heart for ministry. I told him that while I would never discount the possibility of serving on a church staff, I am absolutely convinced that my ministry will not be one of a traditional pastor…
I see my own calling as a “pastor” to artists in the sheer numerical response to the content here on WOP… There is a hunger among artists to discover ways that their talents and gifts can translate into something transcendent: calling and vocation.
While I was interviewing Jason Tockey for the FeaturedArtist post, he talked a lot about this idea of calling and vocation. He believes that the main Biblical emphasis “in understanding what it means to be a Christian, stems from our creation as image-bearers of God.” In other words, the big epiphany is that we should and CAN reflect what Jesus is like in everything that we do… We were literally created for that and then REcreated for it when we started following Jesus…
And by everything, I mean by my relationships, my speech, my ethics, my morals, my work, my play… my artistic pursuits… everything.
So, it’s not just the Pastors and the church-staff that surrender their “vocation” to Jesus… It’s the ditch-diggers, the daycare teachers, the bus drivers… Yeah, it’s the painters and dancers and filmmakers and writers…
Which is not to say that a Christian who is a filmmaker should only make “Christian films”… But shouldn’t her films reveal something of the nature and truth of Jesus? Not in a trite or canned way, but in a truly artistic and authentic way…
For Jason, that means that finding his identity in Jesus’ kingdom is centered, at least in some measure, on discovering what it means to be “a photographer who is a Christian.”
What does it mean for you?
Psst... Pass it on...FeaturedArtist: Jason Tockey…
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Many of Jason's images capture the local beauty of his home in Huntington Beach, CA.
A few months back, Jason Tockey joined our Flickr group and started submitting these really inspiring images of sunsets off of the California coast… Of course, I didn’t know then that this self-taught, amateur photographer would be thoughtful, wise and personally inspiring as well…
Jason has developed a significant talent in photography in just over 2 years… Beginning in August 2008 with the camera on his phone, Jason was quickly hooked and began creating projects for himself… By January 2009, he picked up a Nikon DSLR and never looked back…
Picking up tips from friends on Flickr, other online resources and a few good books, Jason continues to explore different styles and creative artistry. He sometimes shoots 3 or 4 times in a week, taking an average of 150 images in each shoot… Then evaluates his work based on technique and his own artistic criteria…
“After I’m done, I go over the photos and (keep) the ones that capture 4 things that I want to characterize my images…
Beauty, Unity, Transcendence and Iconic-ness.”
Jason talks about his art being central to his Christian walk… What started as a quest for an interesting hobby, quickly transformed into a focus of his identity:
“I started to see photography and being a Christian who is a photographer as a core part of my identity as a Christian.”
Realizing that this was true, his goals changed. While he continues to enjoy shooting images (in fact, I would go so far as to say his images express a deep sense of joy), he has cultivated vision and purpose in finding opportunites to use his gifts and in “improving (his) ability to reflect God’s goodness and faithfulness through His created world.”
“I find that in photography, the hope of God’s goodness, faithfulness, greatness and abundant redemption are the focus of my work. I feel ministered to and blessed by God as I photograph the beauty of His creation.”
Like many of the artists that I talk to, Jason finds that his gifts “don’t fit the mold” of art in the Church at-large. While his own church-family has been very encouraging, Jason doesn’t envision his photography being used in church primarily…
“I prefer to think of myself as a Christian who is a photographer and the audience for my work being people in general…. I hope the images speak truths about God to everyone who looks at them…. I see my ministry as one of creating excellent images that reveal God to everyone.”
As we spoke, I got curious about what would prompt a guy in his mid-30′s to suddenly start looking for an artistic hobby… He explained that his grandfather had recently died, leaving his reputation for hard work as his legacy… Seeing the same characteristic in his own life, and wanting to pass along more to his own children, Jason decided that it was time to do something different…
It’s a decision that has changed Jason’s understanding of his place in God’s Kingdom…
Can you start something new today?
You can read and subscribe to Just Images, Jason’s blog, or add jstimages as a contact on Flickr.
Psst... Pass it on...Cultivating Discipline, Part 6: Cut Yourself Some Slack…
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I am not a perfectionist… but I’ve worked with a few of them.
It seems like a pretty miserable existence to me… Constantly stressed about every detail of every project… Unable to collaborate, delegate or overlook the tiny flaws…
Don’t get me wrong, I stress about project details and I get focused on correcting issues, and sometimes, I have been known to push a little too hard.
But I learned a long time ago that outcomes are rarely perfect, but most of the time no one notices…
Except the perfectionists.
I hesitate to hate on the perfectionists too much, because I have some perfectionist friends… And I LOVE having a perfectionist on my team. As a leader, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders to have someone else that I can count on to stress about the details…
Truth is, I feel bad for a person who is locked into a destructive pattern of perfectionism… In general, perfectionism is “destructive” when it looks like this:
1. If you are always on edge…. The stress of getting every detail arranged according to your vision is unmanageable.
2. If it limits the scope of your leadership because you (like any micromanager) can only lead as much as you can do yourself…
3. If the fear of failure is paralyzing for you or you would rather not work on a project where the outcome is likely to be imperfect.
The ex-perfectionists that I know all understand a very liberating reality:
They aren’t perfect and (in spite of best efforts) never were.
So, after you suck it up, don’t forget to cut yourself some slack… Your heart will thank you.
Now, I gotta go look at revision 17 of this graphics project I’m working on…
Psst... Pass it on...NEXT in this series: Making Good Decisions…
