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.
I don’t believe in creative blocks. I believe in action. I believe creative block is simply inaction that we fail to fix. I was “blocked” yesterday. I wasn’t able to create anything meaningful and it was frustrating. But that’s not really what happened. What really happened was that I sat down to watch two shows, made…
I love this YouTube video. It’s so perfect the irony contained. “I’m cooler than you!”…until I suddenly realize I’m not. “Pride comes before a fall” is the obvious application here. But I see this attitude so much creatives. We do something we think no one else has done (at least no one around us) and…
So many people attempt to follow their dreams – to create something meaningful. But so many lose strength and conviction. They don’t follow through. I’ve been guilty many times. I abandoned an amazing blog project. I left my fledgling company in neglect when I lost interest. I gave up my magic career. I lacked conviction.
“Your brain doesn’t really belong in this city.” I’ve received this compliment two times in my life. I’m not sure it was intended as a compliment in those two situations…but I take it as such. They were saying my mentality doesn’t really fit in with the culture of the city I live in. I don’t…
Change requires doing something different. This sounds elementary but I think very few people believe it. Blogs are a dying art form. It’s true there are many successful ones, but there are 10 times as many that fail. Magazines, too, are a dying art form. Yet again, there are some successful ones. But so many…
I’m in talks with a company about helping me do some pretty big things with Church Stage Design Ideas and Sunday| Magazine. We’re negotiating…going back and forth. We’re preparing a contract. One of the funniest things I’ve noticed about this process is that I’m basically planning my own demise. I’m anticipating every possible way I…
Twitter’s taught us the value of bite-sized communication. Many people read more words via tweet than via books. That’s one of the reasons I keep these blogs so bite-sized. People, especially creatives, are busy and overworked. It’s risky business to sit down and read a lengthy blog – not knowing if you’re wasting your time…
I used to work for a newspaper. I designed their ads. It was pretty well-run – with the appropriate writers’, designers’ and editors’ spots well staffed. But it never failed that, when the issue dropped, there were glaring typos. They weren’t just typos, they were typos in headlines and other major places. I worked with…
I’m not a fan of Christian movies. And I think I finally realized why. Christian movies have the tendency to wrap up the story with a perfect little bow. They turn a horrible situation into a perfect situation. Man deals with depression over losing his wife. Man finds God and never deals with a single…
Creativity is a balancing act. Especially at a church. If a church focuses too much on creativity, they build an unhealthy culture. The church is maintained by creativity instead of enhanced by it. If the creative level drops one Sunday, people get dissatisfied. But a church that ignores creativity loses their edge. They sink into…