This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
Between February and December 2024, I released nearly all my life’s work to the public domain on my website—over 700 works, including poetry, landscape photographs, classical compositions and arrangements, Christmas carols, hymn arrangements, my doctoral dissertation, and a new book about Psalms. In about eight months, I relinquished all the copyrights for nearly everything I had ever made, renouncing my royalties and my control over my creative output of three decades.
Think of everything you have ever created that glorifies Jesus: all your Christian books or songs or paintings or sermons or poems. Now imagine removing your copyright notices from them and posting them on the Internet with no use restrictions. Did your heart just go up into your throat? Does this sound foolish? Impractical? Irresponsible? Stupid? Maybe it is, but these posts tell the story of how I came to pursue this path with complete certainty and peace.
I have been creating things for over 40 years, and I have been in academia for almost 30 of those years. During this journey, the Lord has given me unique opportunities to observe and experience many ways of carrying the blessings and burdens of creativity. I’ve lived long enough now to see how those many different choices have played out. My prayer is that the stories in this series will help you to think practically about your creative gifts and that the Lord will guide you as you choose how to best steward them.
This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
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