Life, Art, and Creativity with Andrew Peterson
On today’s episode, we’re chatting with Andrew Peterson about life, art, and creativity. Andrew has performed thousands of concerts, published four novels, released ten albums, taught college and seminary classes on writing, founded a nonprofit ministry for Christians in the arts, and executive-produced a film—all in a belief that God calls us to proclaim the gospel and the coming kingdom using whatever gifts are at our disposal. This conversation will encourage you to use the gifts that God has given you for his glory as well. Andrew is clear that he’s stumbled along the way, made mistake after mistake, and yet continually encountered the grace of God and the power of truth, beauty, and goodness in Scripture and the arts. We pray that this conversation with Andrew encourages you to humbly go about the good work that the Lord has set before you today, resting in grace and trusting that he will redeem all of your screw ups.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Can you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?
When did you first see yourself as someone who creates?
As image-bearers of God, are we all creative on some level? What are some ways we might actually be creating that we might not consider "creative?”
How does expressing our creativity point to our Creator?
How can we use the stories we tell, the music we write, the podcasts we produce, the pictures we take, the gardens we nurture, and the meals we prepare to point to God's bigger story?
What would it look like to misappropriate our creativity and to use it for our glory instead of God’s? What do you do when you realize you're doing that?
What do you do when you feel burned out?
How can we encourage creativity in those around us and in the Body of Christ?
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES
“There’s a difference between imagination and creativity. Imagination is being able to imagine something that isn’t there. Or to be able to see something that has always been there but has been obscured. Creativity is the hard work of incarnating what you imagine.”
“Creating something that is deeply Christian doesn’t mean you are cheapening the work of art.”
“There is no hard line between the arts and Christianity. Christianity is actually the garden where the arts grow best.”
“Once I realized that at the age of 18, that’s when I asked God if I could write songs about him, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“I just want to tell the best story I can possibly tell.”
“When I write this story, I want it to be the kind of story that will plant the kind of seeds that will grow in their imagination and in their hearts into the shape of the gospel. I also want to write a story that can sit on the shelf of Barnes and Noble and a random kid can pick it up and just love it as a story.”
“We live in a world that is brimming over with the presence of God. The Psalms say “the heavens declare his handiwork.” All of creation is preaching a sermon all the time. Learning to pay attention to the pointless beauty that fills the earth: flowers that don’t serve much of a purpose other than just being pretty. There’s a precedent. Scripture also has a precedent. Scripture is not just a book of rules. Scripture is poetry and allegory and metaphor and songs - it’s full of all of this stuff.”
“We have been given permission to look at the world artistically, and to see the world and the story that God is telling, to see God himself as a kind of artist.”
“The whole world divided into a deeper wonder as soon as I started paying attention to the varied-ness of God’s creation.”
“One of the best muscles I think you can exercise as an artist, or as a person who doesn’t think of themself as an artist, is just to learn to pay attention.”
“Learning the language of artists and stories can diversify the way we see the world, it gives us a more specific lens through which to see things. This is something that anyone can do. You don’t have to know how to draw to appreciate a good drawing.”
“Learn to pay attention to the many layers of creativity and what goes into it.”
“You don’t have to be good at art to enjoy art.”
“The artistic process itself quite literally forces you to slow down and stop moving.”
“I have more conversations with God in the process because it’s so difficult. There ends up being a wonderful communion that happens in the creative process that comes in part because it is so frustrating.”
“The impeded stream is the one that sings” - Wendell Berry
“The best thing you can do is to remember that God is going to redeem your screw-ups. That’s what he does. That takes the pressure off. Your motives are never going to be perfectly pure. One of the worst things that can happen is that you can be so worried about whether you’re doing it for the right reasons that you do nothing at all.”
“If your life is motivated by your ambition to leave a legacy, what you'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition.” - Rich Mullins
“The good news is it doesn’t matter. God redeems it. Even if my ambition was to leave a name for myself, even if I was just trying to pay the bills out of fear, God still used those songs, he still used my broken motivations for his glory.”
“It has been so fun to see the way the Lord has redeemed all my screwups” - Brown Bannister
“Of course you screwed up. Of course you have regrets. Why are you so shocked that you have regrets? The beautiful thing about the gospel is that it doesn’t depend on me having good motivations or doing things in the right way. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.”
“Just go do the thing. Know that you’re a mess and that God is going to redeem it, that’s what he does.”
“Intention trumps execution. What you mean to do is what the audience is going to remember longer than what you actually did. This gives you the freedom to be a little bit reckless and just try something.”
“Relieve yourself or the pressure to do it right, and just do something.”
“Recover a sense of play. Try to be young again, be young enough to not care if you mess up and just go make something.”
“One of the best ways to use our imagination is to look at the world around us and imagine what the kingdom of God in its fullness is going to look like one day. And then to get busy building towards it.”
RESOURCES
Rich Mullins
Conversion between David Taylor and Eugene Peterson on the arts
Every Frame a Painting - on the language of film
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How can you leverage small moments throughout the day to pursue creativity and imagination
How does seeing God’s creativity in the world around you lead you to worship?
As you create, how does understanding the gospel allow you the freedom to create something imperfect?
How does looking toward the future kingdom of God compel you to work, create, and live now
What are you going to do or implement as a result of what you’ve learned this week?
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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