Think Like a 5 Year Old: Reclaim Your Wonder & Create Great Things

By Len Wilson

Each of us once possessed great creative power. Yet somehow,
somewhere, creativity has been lost, and with it the joy and growth that
it brings. When we don’t feel creative, we don’t feel fulfilled.

Discover
your creativity story: why you had it, how you lost it, and how to get
it back. As you journey to reclaim your wonder, you’ll learn how to use
it to create great things in your personal and professional life.
Only then can you discover a more fulfilling life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Jun 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781630887995

Len Wilson

Len Wilson is an author, speaker, and advocate for creativity in faith and life. He is known for his pioneering work in visual storytelling and has consulted with organizations and ministries across the country. Len is the author or co-author of ten books, has been featured in dozens of articles for major religious periodicals, and has acquired leadership books for Abingdon Press, a division of the United Methodist Publishing House. He currently serves as Creative Director at Peachtree, a large church in Atlanta, Georgia. Follow Len at lenwilson.us or on Twitter at @Len_Wilson.

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Endorsements

I love this book so much. As a pastor and counselor, it has always burdened me to see a person stop taking risks, stop creating, stop living life to the fullest. God is a Creator God, and we are made in His image. Thank you, Len, for encouraging us to dream again!

—Ron Edmondson, pastor, blogger, church leadership consultant

"I’ve always believed that everyone is born creative. But there’s something about entering the educational system that starts pushing our sense of wonder into the background. Now, Len Wilson shows us how to rediscover our imagination in his amazing new book Think Like a Five-Year-Old. Get this book, because after reading it, you’ll never look at life’s challenges the same way again."

—Phil Cooke, filmmaker, media consultant, and author of One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do

This remarkable book is for all of us who long to recapture the wondrous creativity we once took for granted. Len Wilson draws from inspiring stories of real people who fought the battle for divergent thinking and practiced the disciplines required to innovate. I highly recommend this practical and inspiring work and plan to give it to my artistic daughters.

—Nancy Beach, leadership coach, The Slingshot Group and author of The Hour on Sunday and Gifted to Lead

I can’t recommend this book strongly enough. Len Wilson’s work is not only significant and inspiring but also critical for our society in this time. His insights are perhaps especially important for church leaders as we attempt to discover how to make the gospel message authentic in our ever-changing and isolating landscape. Spirituality and creativity cannot be separated. We all need to be called again to become childlike in our faith, our imagination, and our sense of wonder and possibility that we may recapture the creativity the Creator placed in all of us. This book is for the closet-creative and child in each of us that is just waiting to break free.

—Gary Rivas, pastor, Gracepoint Church, Johannesburg, South Africa

"Think Like a Five-Year-Old invites us to take a bold, surrendered risk into a more creative, fulfilling life."

—Rebekah Lyons, author, Freefall to Fly

"Len writes as a man who is both deeply creative and intensely pastoral. In Think Like a Five-Year-Old, he dives deeply into the heart of any person who believes that creativity matters. In his thought-provoking and beautiful words, Len is helping us all discover the beauty of being a follower of Jesus and living a creative life that’s from the gut. There are people in my life who cannot see the creativity God is calling them to, and they’ll be the first people to whom I send this book."

—Gary Molander, co-owner, Floodgate Productions, and author of Pursuing Christ. Creating Art.

As someone who pays the bills by creating art, I’ve found it’s easy to get caught up in the industry of production and consumption. I am always on the brink of burnout. Though I love creating moments of wonder and astonishment for other people, I struggle with losing my own childlike wonder. Like me, Len knows this tension all too well. I’m so grateful that he’s shared his story of becoming a kid again.

—Stephen Proctor, worship artist, illuminate.us

In a world encumbered with dull and gray, Len Wilson offers us a brilliant, Technicolor future by inviting us to harness our unique, God-given creativity. As creatures made in the image of God, each one of us has untapped ingenuity yet to be expressed. This book is for anyone who wants to tap into this well of imagination.

—Jorge Acevedo, lead pastor, Grace Church of southwest Florida, and author of Vital: Churches Changing Communities and the World

If you want to recover some of the wonder you had as a child, then read this book. It will help you discover what you once had—creativity.

—Bill Easum, author, consultant, and coach, 21st Century Strategies

Len Wilson’s excellent book isn’t just for those who would call themselves ‘creative.’ It is packed with practical insights to help me grow as a communicator and storyteller. Using these principles, Len has brought creative wonder back into local churches to tell better stories and change more lives.

—Bryan Dunagan, senior pastor, Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Dallas

A plethora of blog posts offer 10 ways to get more creative or 6 ways to find inspiration. Don’t look for such facile answers here. Instead, discover a set of rich illustrations and powerful stories that reveals what it really means to drink from the fountain of fulfillment.

—Joe Carmichael, pastor, United Methodist Church

"Len Wilson’s Think Like a Five-Year-Old takes us back to the playground to cultivate renewed habits that lead to new futures. Thoughtful and thought-full, Len dares us to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, like a diligent Little Leaguer first learning to swing for the fences. Regardless of where you now believe you are on the creativity spectrum, this book will take you further!"

—Dr. Jay Richard Akkerman, Director of Graduate Theological Online Education, Northwest Nazarene University, author of Missional Discipleship: Partners in God’s Redemptive Mission

A great watercolorist once said creativity was the convergence of five blessings: contrast, composition, intuition, humility, and effortlessness. Len has painted a book to model these blessings. Once you have read it, then stand at a distance to look at it. Then you will get it.

—Thomas G. Bandy, conference speaker, leadership coach, president of Thriving Church Consulting, LLC

Title

Think_Like_a_5-Year_Old_Versa_spot%20gloss.tif

Abingdon Press

Nashville

Copyright

Think Like a Five-YeaR-Old

Reclaim Your Wonder and Create Great Things

Copyright © 2015 by Len Wilson

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., P.O. Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988, or e-mailed to [e-mail].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Len, 1970-

Think like a five year old : reclaim your wonder and create great things / Len Wilson.

1 online resource.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-63088-799-5 (e-pub) — ISBN 978-1-4267-8641-9 (binding : soft back : alk. paper) 1. Christianity and the arts. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

BR115.A8

261.5’7—dc23

2015004739

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Epigraphs

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

When you showed me myself I became someone else.

Joseph Arthur

Contents

Contents

Preface

Part 1: I Had It, but I Lost It

1. Trajectory | The Story of Creativity

2. Storyboard | Five Ways Children Understand Creativity

3. Wonder Free | How, Somewhere Along the Way, We Lose It

4. Demons | The Lies That Steal Our Creativity

5. Leaving Town | The Secret to Rediscovering Creativity

Part 2: The Four Parts of the Creative Life

6. Stardust | The Types of Creative Expression

7. Heart | How to Care Like a Five-Year-Old

8. Soul | How to Sense Like a Five-Year-Old

9. Mind | How to Think Like a Five-Year-Old

10. Strength | How to Build Like a Five-Year-Old

Part 3: How to Become More Creative

11. Blinking Cursor | How to Overcome the Tyranny of Beginning

12. Minecraft | How to Find a Workable Creative Process

13. Half-Life | Why We Must Constantly Keep Creating

A Few Creative Suggestions

Ten Ways to Find Good Ideas

How to Capture Good Ideas

Acknowledgments

Notes

Study Guide

Preface

Preface

How is the new job? Will you stay for a bit, or are you getting wanderlust?

My friend’s note bothered me. I looked the word up. Do I have professional wanderlust—an insatiable desire to move from job to job, growing bored and never staying in one place very long? Is it obvious?

A few weeks later I read a statistic from the Gallup people that said only 13 percent of us are actively engaged in our jobs.1 The majority of us—63 percent—merely put in our time at work and go home. According to the same study, the remaining 24 percent of us are actively disengaged. Although we may have been taught from an early age that fulfillment in life comes from naming passions and pursuing dreams (and we may still post nice quotes to that effect on our social networks), we no longer functionally believe it. We may have good educations; we may have decent salaries. But we are bored—at work, at home, in our personal habits, and in our spiritual lives. We don’t feel very fulfilled.

Not coincidentally, we also don’t feel very creative.

* * *

Defining creativity is tricky. Creativity is a means to something; it is not a product or a hard skill. You don’t ship creativity; you ship what creativity does. Nonetheless, we have a sense of what creativity means. Call someone creative and you’re probably referring to a certain type of person. Someone with energy. An art lover. A problem solver. Someone with good ideas.

The number one most popular TED talk is on the subject of creativity. In it, the presenter, creativity researcher Sir Ken Robinson, says that creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.

2

Paul Torrance, who has been called the father of creativity, says that creativity is a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses; testing and retesting these hypotheses; and finally communicating the results.

3

My five-year-old says that creativity is when you have fun and make stuff. He says it’s not something he really thinks about. He just does it.

I like my five-year-old’s definition best. Creativity includes having original ideas with value, and it includes the process of solving problems. But it is much more. Creativity is life. It’s just what we do. We are created not to consume but to create. God’s human design is that we would be cocreators.

And what is it that we create? I believe it is art, regardless of our vocation or location. We may be engineers or computer geeks or consultants or housewives or academics, but when we create, we become artists, each in our own way.

Seth Godin, the marketer who has become a leading spokesperson for the networked world of the twenty-first century, says that now, we don’t have creative interests or hobbies. In our postindustrial culture, what we used to call a hobby can now become our livelihood, if we have sufficient passion. To some degree, I think Godin makes a living selling the mythology of the Internet, that we can all be rich and famous. Yet I am intrigued with the glimpse Godin gives us of a God-given power and promise that each of us has a creative calling:

One ghetto that we used to reserve for artists was the idea that they made luxury items, entertainments and objects that had nothing to do with productivity or utility. I think that was convenient but wrong, even fifty years ago. Thomas Edison was a monopolist (and an artist). Henry Ford’s slavish devotion to his concept of interchangeable parts and mass production was as much an art project as an opportunity to make money. Madame Curie gave her life to doing the art of real science.

4

In other words, creativity is not just for people writing sonnets. Each vocation, each professional life can be engaged creatively. But it’s even better than that. Godin hints at a truth about creativity. Creativity is about listening to, and

Reviews for Think Like a 5 Year Old

[mitchellray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Think Like a Five-Year-Old" by Len Wilson is less a manual and more a map of the creative process. Wilson provides inspiration and direction without imposing instruction about how to allow the inherent creativity within you to flourish. Wilson writes from a Christian perspective. This may be off-putting to some. That is unfortunate because Wilson has much to offer any reader interested in cultivating personal creativity. The book might resonate with a wider audience if Wilson had written in terms of the spiritual aspects of creativity rather than using specifically Christian terminology. Nonetheless, Wilson provides valuable guidance for anyone seeking to live a more fulfilling life by releasing his or her creativity in service to others and God.