Jonathan Malm helps people uncover creative options for their life and their church. He’s the author of Created for More, a 30-day devotional to help you develop a more creative mind. You’ll find him in San Antonio, Texas, roasting his own coffee beans and enjoying life with his Argentine wife, Carolina.

Beautiful Blindness

Got a chance to sit down for coffee with a super cool friend on Monday. Esther Havens. She’s an ultra legit humanitarian photographer who works with companies like TOMS, Charity: Water, and Warby Parker. She’s also speaking at #Echo13 – the conference I’m directing in July. I’ve had the chance to sit with her a few times…

What Can You Do Now?

My wife has a dream. She dreams of living on Hollywood Beach (Florida, not California) and rollerblading down the Broadwalk. She told me this dream while we were driving to the airport from our vacation last week. I’m all for dreams. So I asked her, “What are you doing now to make that dream come…

Your Best is Simple

I had the privilege of being a pastor’s kid for multiple years of my life. I say privilege because I truly had a great experience. I know that isn’t the case for many PK’s. But it was phenomenal to see my dad navigating the waters of pastordom – organizational strategy, betrayals, criticisms, moral and ethical…

Pain

I had lunch with a friend the other day. He recently moved his family to the DFW area for a new job. A few weeks ago, though, he found out they were letting him go. He’d signed papers on a new home one week before that. Ouch. So now he’s stuck in Dallas, away from…

Perception and Need

I’ve been learning something about meeting people’s needs. I’ve found you can’t hope to meet someone’s needs unless you meet their perceived needs. And their perceived needs usually don’t match up with their real needs. Let me illustrate. Creative folks who work in churches have real and perceived needs. Their real needs are this: to…

Creating for Many

I was reading an article someone wrote for one of my projects. I found myself increasingly frustrated as I read through it. My brain kept checking out and I was seriously losing interest. The thing that made this so frustrating was that I had to read it. It’s my job. But if I’d been a casual…

Jump Before Thinking

There are two, nay three types of creators in the world. There are those that jump before thinking. There are those that think before jumping. And there are those that think before jumping, but never jump. Unfortunately I’ve found those last two are often the same. There are too many people with great ideas that…

The Analytical Excuse

Every now and then I get a chance to verbally smack someone. And it feels oh, so, good. Yesterday I was chatting with my friend and these words left his mouth, “I can’t be that creative. I’m more analytical.” Verbal smack! “That’s a cop out. You can be creative if you’re just willing to try.”…