Imagine a Church Community That Inspires Creatives

Crowd gathered at the Westgarth Cinema for Merri Creek Anglican congregation member Jerome Cole's short film.

Walk through the neighbourhoods around Clifton Hill and Fairfield, and you notice something distinctive: an unusually high number of people who make things.

Creativity here is not confined to galleries or stages; it takes place in classrooms, studios, small businesses, co-working spaces, community organisations, back sheds, university labs, design offices, and kitchen tables. This part of Melbourne has long attracted people who imagine, experiment, craft, design, rehearse, and build. Creativity is not a subculture here: it is part of the everyday fabric of life.

So when our vision invites us to imagine a church community that inspires creatives, we are not imagining a marketing slogan. We are imagining a faithful response to the actual people who live around us, and to the theological truth that creativity is part of what it means to be human.

But to pursue this well, we must also learn from the past two decades of urban policy—especially the ways creativity has been promoted, misunderstood, commodified, and, at times, weaponised in cities like Melbourne.

Who are the "Creatives"?

We use the term broadly. A creative is anyone who brings something into existence that wasn't there before, who sees possibilities where others see limits, who pursues beauty, clarity, transformation, or meaning, who uses imagination to solve problems or express truth.

This includes artists and musicians. But it also includes teachers, engineers, gardeners, social workers, entrepreneurs, researchers, coders, designers, writers, small-business owners, and many who would never describe themselves as "creative" yet embody creativity in their work. Creativity is not a genre or an aesthetic. It is a way of participating in the world.

A Theology of Creativity

Christian faith gives creativity its deepest foundation. The first way God reveals Himself in Scripture is as the Creator who joyfully forms light, land, water, plants, creatures, and humans. Creativity is part of God's nature, and therefore part of ours. Yet human creativity can be distorted, bent toward self-promotion, insecurity, or fear. Christ redeems our work, freeing us to create for the good of others and for the glory of God.

Beautiful work, whether a poem, a garden, a melody, or a design, can open a person to the sacred. Beauty often reaches the heart when arguments fall flat. And the people who imagine, through story, design, technology, research, or craft, play a significant role in shaping society's desires, questions, and hopes. To disciple creatives is to bless the whole community.

Policy and Unintended Consequences

Creativity has not only shaped culture; it has shaped policy, including in Australia. Research over the past two decades shows that the creative cities concept has gained enormous traction among Australian planners and governments seeking to link economic development with cities' cultural attributes. Richard Florida's ideas, first published in Rise of the Creative Class (2002), found especially fertile ground here. He visited Australia multiple times, giving high-profile talks in Melbourne in 2002 and 2004, and again in Sydney.

By 2002, the Howard government had incorporated Florida's creativity index into the National Economics and Australian Local Government Association State of the Regions report, which rated every region in the country for its "creativity." This cemented creative-city thinking at a national policy level.

Melbourne, in particular, embraced the creative-city narrative. The Victorian government highlighted innovation and creativity as essential to economic growth and essential for attracting skilled workers and investment. But research has since shown that this pursuit of creative advantage had complex consequences.

Studies by Rowland Atkinson and Hazel Easthope reviewed how five Australian cities, including Melbourne, implemented creative city strategies. Their findings were sobering. Creativity-focused policy often coincided with gentrification. Low-income households were pushed to the margins. Redevelopment catered heavily to high-net-worth individuals and affluent young professionals. Local governments felt pressure to remove "unsavoury elements" from public space, including buskers, beggars, and people experiencing homelessness, who were viewed as a risk and downside of stimulating creative growth.

Significant urban planning developments, such as Docklands, were criticised for being placemaking for affluent residents, with inadequate provision for public or affordable housing. As one Melbourne official admitted, the property market ultimately dictates the kinds of communities we live in. In other words, creativity became a tool of competition, and cities shaped by creativity often became cities shaped by exclusion.

Florida himself has since undergone a profound transformation, as documented in The New Urban Crisis (2017). He explained to The Guardian, "I found myself confronting the dark side of the urban revival that I had once championed and celebrated." He now acknowledges that focusing on attracting creatives, without attending to equity, housing, and community wellbeing, intensifies inequality and pushes vulnerable people further to the edges.

For the church, this is essential learning: creativity pursued as a competitive advantage can wound. Creativity pursued as a gift from God can heal.

Inspiring Creatives, Faithfully and Justly

A gospel-shaped vision of creativity must resist the pitfalls of creative-city strategies. We don't inspire creatives to raise our church's profile or position ourselves in the cultural marketplace. We inspire creatives because creativity is part of discipleship and part of the flourishing of our neighbours.

A church that inspires creatives will treat creativity as a vocation, not a currency. We honour the value of creative work without commodifying it. Creatives are not a resource to be harvested but people to be loved. Our aim is not to curate an image or "vibe" (we are not trying to be cool), but to offer spaces where genuine belonging and collaboration can flourish.

Many creatives wrestle with fear, comparison, and the pressure to prove themselves through their work. The gospel speaks directly to these anxieties: your worth is not tied to your output. This is spiritual formation that sets people free. A gospel shaped approach to creativity lifts those who are marginalised, not just those who are celebrated or economically valuable. Our art shows, our Christmas choirs, our teaching, our community initiatives exist not for prestige, but to build connection, deepen understanding, and reveal God's presence.

Creatives long to make something meaningful. Many also carry a deep fear of not being enough. The gospel offers this liberating truth: your identity is given, not achieved. God welcomes your imagination. Your work can participate in God's renewal of the world. Your creativity is not a burden; it is a calling.

Imagine…

Imagine a church where creativity is welcomed, not exploited. Imagine a church where people feel free to try, fail, try again, and grow. Imagine a church where beauty is taken seriously as a pathway to God. Imagine a church where creatives of all kinds find their gifts deepened through faith. Imagine a church where creativity blesses the whole neighbourhood, including those who are most easily forgotten.

This is our vision at Merri Creek: a church community that inspires creatives, not by following policy trends, not by trying to be cool, but by grounding creativity in the gospel and offering it for the good of all.