Let’s Get Creative – First Steps to Catholic Innovation

Posted: 03/29/2022 | Innovation

Everyone is creative. Whether you’re deemed as ‘left-brained,’ analytical, ‘artistically lacking,’ you possess the creative intuition given to you by Christ. We’ll even go as far to say that He works as our ‘co-creator’ in the creative process, guiding us through life by revealing to us His creative genius. Think about the Story of Creation. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that light was good, and God divided the light from darkness.” God noticed that there was a need for a heaven and an earth, light and darkness, water and fire, and so forth. He is the ultimate Creative.

As we are made in His image and likeness, do we not possess the ability to create, innovate, inspire, educate, and so on? Are we not called to live in the creative process and in our creative intuition for the greater good? The answer to both of these questions is: yes. We are called as sons and daughters of Christ to continually exercise our creative genius (trust us, it’s there!).

And an exercise it is! Just as you work your body in the gym and your mind in the office, it is essential to work your creativity. In his OSV Talk ‘The Inefficient Innovator,’ President of the OSV Institute for Catholic Innovation Jason Shanks states, “if we overemphasize process, efficiency, programs, it can crowd out new, creative, innovative ideas that are so desperately needed.” Can you think of a process in your work, ministry, community that could use a new approach? If so, congratulations! You have already started the creative thinking process.

Let’s dive deeper.

  1. Identify the problem.

Start with your community, your family, a task at work. Discern with the Lord and start to find solutions with the Spirit as your guide. Approach a longstanding process with a fresh set of eyes, challenge a new perspective on an “uber efficient” method. Creative thinking combined with trust in the Spirit makes for an innovative solution to whatever problem you’re currently faced with.

2. Surround yourself with creative people and creative outlets.

Have a hobby? Dive into it. Read books on the creative process behind movie production, attend a concert of your favorite music artist, join a writer’s club, join a hiking club (trails hold creativity, too!), find a group of people with similar interests…shall we go on? As with most everything, it starts with who and what you surround yourself with.

3. Try. Win. Fail. Learn.

It’s only up from there! You try things, you win, you fail, you learn. But you don’t quit. Prioritize your creativity and trust in the Spirit to guide you. Recognize your comfort zone, then break it. Get your ideas on paper and sit with them. Share them. Refine them. Find your audience.

4. Infinite Mindset vs. Scarcity Mindset.

Here’s the hard part: keep growing. Develop an infinite mindset and do away with scarcity in any realm. The more we focus on what’s not there, the more that comes to fruition. Once we understand that there is room for everyone at the table, we grow in our creativity and overall success. As author and innovator Simon Sinek writes in The Infinite Game, “We can’t choose the game. We can’t choose the rules. We can only choose how we play.”

Identify your problem, take it to the Lord, take time in creative spaces, take action and repeat, repeat, repeat.


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