The most important secret of every buoyant and robust organizations, businesses, and ministries you see around town or read about is that they constantly and continuously take initiative to create and to recreate new things.

Creativity in my own term is a survival instinct or taking an adaptive posture for survival, and this is one of the necessary ingredients for sustaining a business, ministry and an organization in an open competitive market. It is also the life wire of every effective leader and a manure for nourishing businesses, relationships and marriages. Creativity is not just about seeing  the things only a few or perhaps everyone is seeing, but thinking about what nobody has thought before; and turning great ideas into a reality or profitable venture.

It becomes a thing of frustration when all your ideas becomes a reality but yet, it seems not going as expected. Nothing really seems to be working, and everything has come to a standstill and you are about to fold-up. Please hold on, and go through this piece patiently with an open mind before you make your final decision. My focus today is about the relevance of creativity, how to create solutions and come up with ground breaking ideas in the midst of trials and challenges to overturn the current condition of your business, and ministry. The principles written here has no restrictions and can be applied to every depressed or dysfunctional areas or walks of life.

Creativity and innovation are basic factors that have constantly kept the business world moving. It is a do-without-factor, and it is also the basic reason why some organizations have a competitive advantage over the others. This is as result of the fact that their leaders are creativity-driven. It is not enough to be creative, creativity must be continuous, and consistent otherwise, what you have created yesterday will become obsolete for today. And this is where a lot of us have fail in business and ministry. If what you have created in years past meets yesterday's demand and it lacks the capacity to satisfy today's demand; then, you are found to be wanting.

So if you can't keep up with constant creativity, you will bow out of the industry and allow the thinking leaders continue to influence and dominate their world. And so if you must create, then you must think. The deeper you think, the higher you grow. Don't think into depression, but think out solutions, and if your thinking must produce positive results then you must be inspired. It is also not enough to be inspired, but let your inspiration be drawn from the right source. Let your source of inspiration never run dry, alternate or hibernate, let it be true and original, let it be a source that doesn't shutdown or comes up once in a while. This is where the Holy Spirit becomes an indisputable factor. And I would love to recommend this source of inspiration to you with all confidence. As a minister of God; you might want to evaluate yourself if you are constantly connected with the right source. Perhaps the reason why your church has stopped experiencing the presence of God is because you have lost touch with the Holy Spirit. And that is why your ministry is at the brink of collapse. When the fuel of a fast moving vehicle finishes, it is bound to stop. If it has not stopped then it's just a matter of time. This is the condition of many churches, ministries and business. The oil has finished and they are busy struggling to move forward. It's impossible! it brings you to a place of frustration.

It would be wise to step out refill your oil and bounce back to life and effectiveness. It is so unfortunate that the world today is bedeviled with leaders who are impulsive when it comes to thinking. They act and take decisions before they think or even consult the Holy Spirit, thereby leading an organization into a shipwreck. This is particularly the reasons for the failure we see everywhere.

A creativity oriented leader puts an organization on a cutting edge over others. God has wired every man with the ability and capacity to solve problems, and your ability to solve problems is what makes you relevant as a leader. The immediate impact of a leader becomes palpable, when certain responsibilities are revisited, and delegated with clear, simple but strict instructions. Impact becomes obvious when systems are put in place. Now what do you do as a leader who has just assumed a position and you discover things are not working?  The organization is in a state of malady, and at the verge of collapse. Would you begin to think, create measures, strategize,  and re-strategize immediately or continue to give all the excuses in the world why you can't be effective?

Always remember that nobody would want to listen to your excuses. An Excuse is not a standard for measuring achievement but a litmus showing the evidence of your incompetence and lack of capacity to influence. My focus today is to expose you to what you should do when you find yourself in such a situation. Let us consider what God did when He was in a similar situation, just like situation that many leaders are in our contemporary world who took over the leadership of a nation, and or organization that is at the verge of falling apart.

The earth was also in a pathetic situation just like the state your business, ministry, organization, home and marriage is right now. As a matter of fact the Scripture recorded that it was without form and void , and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. The first step God took was to hover His Spirit over the problems and over the pathetic situation of the earth. You don't revive a dead or crashing organization just by sitting and lamenting over the woes that had befallen your organization or your followers. You must hover over the problems.

In order to begin a creativity journey for reviving  a striving business or organization, a leader must be able to follow all of the following principles.

The leader must be able to:

Look Up

If you must begin to solve that problem then look up so that a supernatural force can come down to visit the condition of your business, ministry and organization. Looking up here; does not mean you should look up to the sky or to the moon or to the gods of the sun or to any man. In fact your failure begins when you confer with flesh and blood. You must always look up to Christ who is the author and the finisher of our faith to draw strength, motivation, inspiration and stamina. Moses asked the followers to look up to the image of a serpent that was hanging in order to receive their healing.

It takes a motivating leader to do that, you must not look up alone, carry your followers along to also look up, not to the hills or to the mountains nor to spiritual host inhabiting the celestial bodies. How much looking up have you done as a leader. If you cannot look up to draw your inspiration and motivation then you won't be able to translate and replicate that attitude to your followers. Peter began to sink the moment he stopped looking up to Christ, while he was sinking he cried out and Jesus gave him a helping hand. Begin by looking up to God in prayers and supplication, in faith and hope that God will turn the situation around. God is also telling you today to look up to Christ for a solution this is where creativity begins.

 Look Within:  

Before God created man, He began by creating other things. And He created them from a source. For example when God wanted to create the trees, herbs and grasses, He spoke to the earth, and the earth brought them forth. He also spoke to the firmament to produce birds of the air, and it was so. He spoke to the sea to produce sea animals and fishes, and they showed up. But when it was the time to create man, God spoke to Himself. This particular statement has made every other material inferior for the creation of man. In other words, He looked within Himself and created man from the abundance of resources within Himself. This is something we must learn from. As leaders, it means you should also look inwards at your potentials, gifts, talents, graces and capacities, and apply them for positive results.

Do not box yourself in rigidity and regimented routines, be flexible. "Until you come to a place where you are willing and able to look within and speak to yourself, you can't speak light into your darkness" You have a lot to offer, you must operate in the class of a small god. You must function with the spirit that is connected to the unsearchable and unlimited power of creativity rooted in a big God. Creativity begins when you speak to yourself, it is also a form of motivation, it is a way of speaking and charging up your spirit. Say to yourself "I can do this" and you would be surprised at the amazing thing it will help you to accomplish.

God took the initiative, He began the journey and He expects every leader to follow in like manner. He began to create by introducing light. How did He do it? By speaking. What did He speak forth? Light! The Scriptures recorded in Romans 4:17b "He calls those things which do not exist as though they did." The most important phenomenon for a dead thing is life. Anything else other than life is not necessary for a dead thing irrespective of how good or pleasant it might be. Now the opposite of darkness is light. If you must create an idea or if you must solve a problem then you must recognize oppositeness.

Every solution is the opposite of an original problem. A solution is supposed to be an antidote that fades a problem away. God understood this and every leader must also understand this: for darkness to go there must be light and so He spoke by calling it forth. How many problems have you identified as a leader since you began the journey of resuscitating your business or ministry, and how many effective opposite factors have you discovered to act as an antidote? This is a serious issue to ponder on. God didn't just identify the problems and its opposite antidote.

He spoke by calling the solution/antidote into existence for effectiveness. How much speaking have you done? When you spoke; How much calling forth did you do?  Don't forget that the power of life and death lies on the tongue. You must confess positivity over your business, ministry and marriage. You must confess, decree and declare God's word over business. It has an amazing capacity to quicken the dead to life.

Source: [Centre for New Dimension Leadership]