Colleen Warren, professor of English, published her third book in February 2024. The book, “The First Verb: Cultivating Christian Creativity,” introduces Warren’s approach and story regarding creativity as well as the interest and research that her journey sparked.
On Oct. 23, Warren gave insights on the book to those at Taylor University and in the surrounding community in a faculty book talk hosted by the Zondervan Library.
The library typically hosts one to two faculty book talks a semester, where professors can showcase their individual and academic pursuits to an audience that may otherwise not hear about the books they have created.
Shannon Eaves, director of the library, said the main goal of library book talks is to help promote faculty scholarship.
“(Book talks) let the campus community know what our faculty are doing and what it does for the community,” Eaves said. “Hopefully, it encourages others to publish. Hopefully it encourages students to come and see how accomplished their faculty are and to see them in a different light.”
When faculty talk about their interests outside of their academic work, it humanizes them and helps students get to know them better, Eaves said.
Senior English literature student Lydia Channell is one of Warren’s advisees and has taken several classes with the professor.
Channell knew about Warren’s new book before the event's announcement and was eager to attend the talk as she had already read some of the book and appreciated the way Warren integrated creativity in the classroom.
“(Students are asked to) take their academic understanding of this work and fuse it with your creativity and what you've gotten out of this literature as a person, not just a student,” Channell said. “Instead of other classes, you kind of have to separate yourself as the person who got something out of the literature, not in literature classes necessarily, but in any discipline.”
Warren opened the book talk with her reason for writing “The First Verb.”
When working on her previous book, “Reentering Eden: Christian Meditation in Nature,” Warren had noticed that being in nature sparked her creativity, which prompted ideas for a new book about creativity.
Warren’s interest in creativity came from a New Year's resolution that she completed – to do something creative every day. This experience showed her the need for her own creative outlets and prompted work on her book.
The premise of the book is that since humanity is made in the image of God, and God is creative, then – by extension – people are too. Warren claims that if someone doesn't think they are creative, they either haven’t tried or have not found their niche.
In her talk, Warren summarized the various chapters to give a general idea of the content, supplementing with selections from different portions.
She moved through the evidence of God’s creativity and followed this with humanity's command to be creative likewise. She noted the benefits of creativity and theology of creativity, defined as the idea that the Christian artist’s work is different from others and made to glorify God and finished with the practices that help people pursue creativity.
Warren’s book advocates for people to find and embrace the cultivation of their creativity. In her eighth chapter, she ties this to the way God sees and encourages our endeavors.
“In my final chapter, the short one, I compare and remember back to my own children creating art,” Warren said. “It's not very good at first, but you love it because it’s your children’s, and you put it up on the refrigerator. It's cringe worthy. And I think that that's the way that God looks at our creativity: it’s not perfect. We don't do it right, but he loves us and therefore he loves our creativity as well.”
For budding creatives unsure of where to start they can rest in the encouragement that perfection is never the goal. The Christian’s art is an act of humility and a way to honor God with the skills he blessed humankind with.
Warren continues in the act of exercising her creativity by creating altered books, an artform similar to scrapbooking where the artist collages pages within a book. She also hopes to submit another book for publishing soon, one that she worked on over her sabbatical semester in Spring 2024.
