Chapter 2/Growth for Chapter 2/Growth for Life:Life:

Growing & Creating

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates

“I’m so bored.” An American Teenager

Concept A: Our Need to GrowConcept A: Our Need to Grow

To reach our full potential we must seek experiences that challenge us to go beyond the familiar

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

We should do this constantly and purposely

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

This means using our God-given capacities to learn and create

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

We should be like children who are curious about the whys and hows of everything

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

Somewhere around early adolescence we become self-conscious and unsure about ourselves

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

We lose that tendency to explore and imagine and end up BORED!

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

Are you in a rut??? Read p. 30

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

Each of us possesses an almost limitless capacity to develop ourselves

We need to travel our own unique path to learning and creativity

Our Need to GrowOur Need to Grow

Jack Gardner- educator, psychologist (read p. 31 An Abandoned Gold Mine?)

Growth by Learning Growth by Learning

A lifelong quest – a great bulk of learning is done outside of formal education in the School of Life

Examples p.33 & 34

Growth by learningGrowth by learning

Formal education is structured, done in a secure, safe environment, it is usually less flexible, more rigid, standardized, “objective”

The school of life is characterizes by freedom, risk taking, spontaneous attitude, independence, the lack of certainty, an individual approach, rather “subjective”

Growth by Learning Growth by Learning

Taking the Risk – the deepest learners are those who can draw meaning and growth in spite of tragic events or being afraid

Growth by LearningGrowth by Learning

To be a lifelong learner – choose freedom over the prison of security and sameness

Read author Molly Dee Rundle p. 35

Growth by LearningGrowth by Learning

Jesus doesn’t play it safe◦Those who want to save their life will lose it,

and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

(Matthew 16:25-26)

Growth by learning Growth by learning The benefits of learningThe benefits of learning

Learning offers choices - makes us smart to understand the difference between options

Growth by learningGrowth by learning

Learning overcomes fear – ignorance leads to fear and prejudice, ◦fear of the other,

◦fear of the unknown

Growth by learningGrowth by learning

Learning gives competence – it makes one knowledgeable in different areas, helping one to achieve his/her goals

Growth by learningGrowth by learning

Learning helps us cope with change – ◦respond to new

environment◦gain new job skills◦enter into new

relationships

Growth by learningGrowth by learning

Seven guidelines for taking responsibility for your own learning◦ Form habits of learning (develop self-discipline, foster

curiosity)◦ Set goals (define the purpose for your life)◦ Take the initiative (take the opportunity for learning –

formal education, evening classes, workshops…)◦ Be open (receptive to the people and events around

you)◦ Be flexible (ready to change the course)◦ Do not settle for what is expected (learn the things you

want to learn and not simply what everybody else expects)

◦ Have courage (be ready to question the standards and norms and ask the uncomfortable questions)

Growth through Learning Growth through Learning

Read Luke 15:11–32, the story of the lost son. What did that son learn in the school of life? How did he grow in knowledge, insight, and skills? How did his learning offer him choices, dispel his fear, increase his competence, and help him cope with change?

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

The Creation storyHuman beings are

created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).

However, since God is the Creator, and human beings are made in the Creator’s image, we become creators too.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creatingCreativity – the drive to

bring something new into being

Our sexuality urges us to bring about new life

History gives evidence of the human tendency to invent new product

The creative impulse accounts for great paintings, sculpture and inventions, bringing about new visions and possibilities for humanity.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

What do we “need” to be creative?

The common assumption is that an innovator, artist or a great leader must be highly educated and widely experienced.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

Yet, “the open soul can do wonders with nothing.” Ursula Le Guin

Nelson Mandela spent most of his adult life (23 years) in prison

Ernest Hemingway never finished college

Ann Frank was thirteen when she wrote her diary

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

Creativity begins with openness to the person's ◦internal world:

feelings, ideas, intuitions

◦external reality: life experiences

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

Creative people also develop appropriate skills necessary to their field (weld, cast bronze, use chisel)

How creative you are?How creative you are?

Here is a Fun Creative Problem-Solving Quiz:

Are you a professional? This short quiz will help you understand your thinking style better. The questions aren't difficult and you can scroll down for the answers.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

How creative you are?How creative you are?

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator ?

Wrong Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions.

How creative you are?How creative you are?

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference, all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator. This tests your memory. OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions, correctly you can surely answer this one.

How creative are you?How creative are you?

4. There is a river you must cross. But it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

Around 90% of the professionals got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. This conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year old.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

Please read the two stories on p. 41 and discuss activity 10.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

In the process of becoming creative one simply does not “wait” for an idea to occur.

Being creative begins with hard, solid work.

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

There are certain steps one has to follow in the process of unleashing one’s creativity :

◦ Preparation to create – the process of gaining the factual knowledge and skills

◦ Concentrated work on the problem or idea (Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Thomas Edison)

◦ Rest and retreat from the problem or idea - a time to clear the mind enables one to find new strategies

◦ An “aha” experience – a sudden new insight is gained◦ Trying out the approach that is the result of the previous

steps to see haw it works

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

Ways to Foster Creativity:

◦ Give your intuition and imagination room to function – creativity grows in a quiet, unhurried moments

◦ Have a creative space – most people have their definite time and space in which they are most productive (mornings, specific chair, and so on)

◦ Interact with innovative people - stimulating relationships can give a charge to your work or idea

◦ Ask questions – specially open-ended questions, “What do you think of…”

◦ Break out of ruts – eating the same food, listen to the same music

Growth through creatingGrowth through creating

◦Set and keep deadlines for yourself – creative people make things happen; without deadlines, our energies tend to drain away

◦Focus your attention and dig deeper – learn, research, be informed

◦Set problem and conflicts as opportunities for creativity – many creative people freed their creativity by questions and adversity.

◦The Attitude of Caring!

Time of RenewalTime of Renewal

Our creativity depends on many different factors and circumstances. Among them, an essential one is having leisure – time free from work and other duties.

Look at the word recreation

re-creation - creating again

Time of RenewalTime of Renewal

The Creation storyWe began with the

story of creation from the book of Genesis.

At the end of the story there is the idea of Sabbath day, the day of rest.

Time of RenewalTime of Renewal

In the Eastern culture the idea of Sabbath/rest is expressed by the concept of emptiness.

People need empty times to open their head and heart to listen, to think, and to be in touch with themselves.