The Story Behind this Website
Hello All,
Thank you to everyone who has signed up to get this community up and running. I'm excited to be able to share the inspiration behind this website and our vision of where we are going.
My husband and I have felt for a long time that we were being guided to look for "outside the box" ways to serve the neurodiverse population, as we are in a neurodiverse family ourselves. Discovering a book called "The Spark" by Kristine Barnette back in 2018 opened a new chapter for us, as it put into words what we had been looking for: that everyone has divine gifts but sometimes it takes work and a lot of encouragement to discover what that gifting is.
It Started With Woodworking
We started developing a heart for helping people (especially those who are struggling) to discover their inner creative drive. Our church hosts many asylum seekers for various activities, and my husband Ko, an amateur woodworker, was invited to do a demonstration during an English class.
Several expressed an interest in what he was sharing, and one thing led to the next and Ko started a woodworking creative group held once a week at church. Thank you to Trinity Baptist Church in Gloucester for letting him keep his big workbench and masses of tools in their crafting cupboards!
Ko will I am sure share more about his experiences but watching the Asylum Seekers develop their skills and quickly discover a passion for making was very encouraging.
However, we feel God wants to multiply this experience. We feel there is much potential in using arts, crafts and other creative areas such as writing to help people open up and experience the Love of God, discovering that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Discovering the Next Steps
We started off thinking small scale, expanding the woodworking group to include other crafts but then we remembered that one day my husband was given a dream of a whole centre helping autistic adults, which filled him with hope and inspired us to think bigger. Yet years passed with Covid in between and no further inspiration came in that direction.
But the desire in our hearts kept returning, so we began to pray, to press in to find out where God was leading us. Answers came in little ways, an experience here and an inspiration there. For example, I was playing with clay and learning how to throw on a tabletop wheel and had the idea to inscribe bible verses onto mugs. As I did this, I felt God telling me that this was one ministry he was calling me to: to create art and crafts inspired by the Word of God.
Then one day when I was praying and writing in my journal, I had a vision of being in the countryside. A small joyful boy appeared and took me by the hand to lead me over a hill, where I saw below a big country house with a beautiful garden. The boy was very excited about this building because it was a place of creativity and healing. He seemed to want me to know that this is what God wanted us to be involved in.
Well, this was a vision of something that was way beyond what we could imagine would be possible. But with God, all things are possible. However, we continue in little steps to discover each piece of the puzzle that the Lord has put out for us.
No Doing it Alone!
One of those pieces came together from a Christian networking conference, where during a coaching session I shared a little bit of our vision of a creativity centre. Through sharing I heard the phrase "Creativity Collective" pop into my head, and I suddenly realised we were not supposed to be doing this alone.
From there the idea of gathering a community together was born, a community of Christians with all sorts of creative gifts who can empower each other and together discover ways to use our gifts to reach out and serve the churchless community.
Whether or not we are being led to a physical centre or if it was symbolic I don't know, but I pray we can listen closely to the Holy Spirit as we take one small step at a time to see where this community will go.
Does any of this story resonate with you? What are your hopes or dreams, where is God guiding you to serve? Please share in the comments!