“Therefore I remind you that you stir up the gift of God….”

I remember when I first started teaching kids. It was 1978 and I was only19 years old. Pastor Willie George taught a class on Ministering to Children at the Bible School I was attending. One day, Pastor Willie shared 50 ideas for illustrated sermons and I burned up my pencil writing down those ideas.

After graduating from Bible School I became a full time CP at a church in Port Huron, Michigan. Each week I would pick one of Willie’s sermons and preach it to the kids.

I still remember when I used that last idea. Panic hit me when I realized that “these kids know everything that I know.” After that I spent long hours in prayer begging God to give me some new ideas for sermons for kids. I kept thinking to myself “I wish I was creative like Pastor Willie.”

One day the Holy Spirit whispered to me, “You are creative.”

My response was “No, I am not”

“I live inside you and I am the Creator” was His response.

It’s hard to argue with that.

Do you really believe the Creator of the universe lives inside you? We all have the ability to be creative, we just need to stir up our creativity.

Ten Practical Things to Do to Stir Up Your Creativity

1. Change how you think and what you say about yourself. You are creative!
2. Visit other churches and borrow their ideas.
3. Attend Conferences and learn from other people.
4. Listen to people you don’t agree with. If you want to learn something new, get outside of your click.
5. Surf the Web for new ideas.
6. Read books. Whenever an author tells a story or gives an illustration it can be turned into a children’s sermon.
7. Go to a toy store with some volunteers. Pick up random items and ask people to preach a sermon about it.
8. Think in pictures. Be visual in your preaching. How can you let people see it?
9. Pray in the Spirit. Get God involved in your creativity.
10. Have a brainstorming meeting with key people.

Mark Harper

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Pastor and Leadership Coach, Mark Harper has 35 years of experience in the local church. He is the creator of the Super Church 2.0 Curriculum, which is used in over 5,000 churches worldwide. The focus of Mark's ministry is helping leaders build strong churches and helping parents build strong families. Not only has Mark served in the local church as pastor, associate pastor, and family ministry pastor but he is also a certified coach with the John Maxwell Team. He also recently released the Amazon Best Selling book The Red Book: The Lifeblood of Children's Ministry.