Creativity Deprivation Disorder

Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

Usually, I can’t wait to write these articles for our e-newsletter. When it’s time to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, I have to sift through the many possibilities, narrowing to one.

This week, and the last several weeks, not so. I think I’m like many clergy coaching clients who are on the verge of their sabbaticals…not a creative bone left in their bodies. After listening to numerous clergy and church staff persons, I’m comforted by knowing I’m not alone with my Creativity Deprivation Disorder. Perhaps this is normal after a protracted, chronic crisis. The innovation required to survive or thrive during ongoing crises burns through layers of energy we didn’t know we had. Here as the crisis eases, many are unsurprisingly relaxing into innovation fatigue.

So, where to from here? Well, one option is to burn-out. I’m sorry though…pretending we couldn’t see Creativity Deprivation Disorder coming won’t cut it. Clergy and church staff would have to be sleep-walking for months to miss the buzz about innovation fatigue. Instead, part of being a grown-up responsible professional adult is recognizing when we are on the edge of vocational burn-out, noticing the signs, and intervening effectively. That's not selfishness. That's being a grown-up responsible professional adult. Denial which results in burn-out is an irresponsible choice for most of us.

When we recognize our need, where to from there? Well, here’s my short list of potential activities I might suggest, mostly learned from our clergy and church staff coaching clients:

• Shift engagement with God from “work colleague” to “spiritual companion”

• Give yourself permission to be with God by writing that on your schedule and following through

• Do what’s essential in your ministry, but not creative

• Spend time with people you’ve not seen during the pandemic, enjoying the energy boost

• Spend time away from people, enjoying the energy boost

• Use your vacation time this Summer, giving yourself permission to take more than usual given what you’ve been through

• Decide what shape you want to be in when Fall comes, then schedule your Summer activities to help you be there

Creativity Deprivation Disorder can strike anyone. Innovation Fatigue is often the driver. Responsible professional grown-up mature clergy and church staff recognize God gives us stewardship responsibility of ourselves. Let’s honor God’s trust in us by stewarding ourselves well this Summer. May we be positioned with full tanks, fed well by the Spirit, come Fall 2021.