The Empty Auditorium

Welcome to what I call the Empty Auditorium exercise. It’s designed to help identify what creative pursuit makes your heart beat faster.

Imagine you’re in a room designed for an audience. Maybe it seats ten. Maybe ten thousand. You decide.

Go ahead and sit down in the middle of the stage. Take in the room. You can fill it with whomever you want. Who would it be? Another way to ask this is, who are the ones hungry for what you love to offer? The only invalid answer is, “I’d fill it with everyone.” That’s a non-answer. It keeps the focus vague and thus meaningless. So aim for a specific audience.

Now, what do you want to pour into them? Notice I didn’t ask how they could make you feel important or good about yourself. You are there for them. They are coming to have some need met or desire fulfilled.

Our gifting is this awkward mix of the personal and sacrificial. Creating something begins with pursuing what brings us life. But for our creativity to be more than a vanity project, it must address a felt need or point of pain in those who encounter us and our art. If our art just points back to us, we’re shining the light in the wrong direction.

Though it’s from us, our art at some point becomes no longer about us. We elevate our art by remembering who infused us with our skills and who we are making it for. We drag it down by expecting it to elevate us.

So what would you build or say or teach or sing? What would you create for those in your auditorium? What help would you offer? And how would your creativity make the world a better place?

Don’t let the endless possibilities overwhelm you by seeing it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That just adds pressure. Rather, see it as the passion you have for this season. It’s what makes your heart beat faster . . . for now.

The Empty Auditorium exercise is powerful because it invites you into a void and empty space to offer beauty, life, order, and hope through who you are and what you do. 

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